Two on a Tower
but she took the scissors, and, bending over the sleeping youth, cut off
one of the curls, or rather crooks,--for they hardly reached a curl,--into
which each lock of his hair chose to twist itself in the last inch of its
length. The hair fell upon the rug. She picked it up quickly, returned
the scissors to the table, and, as if her dignity had suddenly become
ashamed of her fantasies, hastened through the door, and descended the
staircase.
VI
When his nap had naturally exhausted itself Swithin awoke. He awoke
without any surprise, for he not unfrequently gave to sleep in the day-
time what he had stolen from it in the night watches. The first object
that met his eyes was the parcel on the table, and, seeing his name
inscribed thereon, he made no scruple to open it.
The sun flashed upon a lens of surprising magnitude, polished to such a
smoothness that the eye could scarcely meet its reflections. Here was a
crystal in whose depths were to be seen more wonders than had been
revealed by the crystals of all the Cagliostros.
Swithin, hot with joyousness, took this treasure to his telescope
manufactory at the homestead; then he started off for the Great House.
On gaining its precincts he felt shy of calling, never having received
any hint or permission to do so; while Lady Constantine's mysterious
manner of leaving the parcel seemed to demand a like mysteriousness in
his approaches to her. All the afternoon he lingered about uncertainly,
in the hope of intercepting her on her return from a drive, occasionally
walking with an indifferent lounge across glades commanded by the
windows, that if she were in-doors she might know he was near. But she
did not show herself during the daylight. Still impressed by her playful
secrecy he carried on the same idea after dark, by returning to the house
and passing through the garden door on to the lawn front, where he sat on
the parapet that breasted the terrace.
Now she frequently came out here for a melancholy saunter after dinner,
and to-night was such an occasion. Swithin went forward, and met her at
nearly the spot where he had dropped the lens some nights earlier.
'I have come to see you, Lady Constantine. How did the glass get on my
table?'
She laughed as lightly as a girl; that he had come to her in this way was
plainly no offence thus far.
'Perhaps it was dropped from the clouds by a bird,' she said.
'Why should you be so good to me?' he cried.
'One good turn deserves another,' answered she.
'Dear Lady Constantine! Whatever discoveries result from this shall be
ascribed to you as much as to me. Where should I have been without your
gift?'
'You would possibly have accomplished your purpose just the same, and
have been so much the nobler for your struggle against ill-luck. I hope
that now you will be able to proceed with your large telescope as if
nothing had happened.'
'O yes, I will, certainly. I am afraid I showed too much feeling, the
reverse of stoical, when the accident occurred. That was not very noble
of me.'
'There is nothing unnatural in such feeling at your age. When you are
older you will smile at such moods, and at the mishaps that gave rise to
them.'
'Ah, I perceive you think me weak in the extreme,' he said, with just a
shade of pique. 'But you will never realize that an incident which
filled but a degree in the circle of your thoughts covered the whole
circumference of mine. No person can see exactly what and where
another's horizon is.'
They soon parted, and she re-entered the house, where she sat reflecting
for some time, till she seemed to fear that she had wounded his feelings.
She awoke in the night, and thought and thought on the same thing, till
she had worked herself into a feverish fret about it. When it was
morning she looked across at the tower, and sitting down, impulsively
wrote the following note:--
'DEAR MR. ST. CLEEVE,--I cannot allow you to remain under the
impression that I despised your scientific endeavours in speaking as I
did last night. I think you were too sensitive to my remark. But
perhaps you were agitated with the labours of the day, and I fear that
watching so late at night must make you very weary. If I can help you
again, please let me know. I never realized the grandeur of astronomy
till you showed me how to do so. Also let me know about the new
telescope. Come and see me at any time. After your great kindness in
being my messenger I can never do enough for you. I wish you had a
mother or sister, and pity your loneliness! I am lonely too.--Yours
truly,
VIVIETTE CONSTANTINE.'
She was so anxious that he should get this letter the same day that she
ran across to the column with it during the morning, preferring to be her
own emissary in so curious a case. The door, as she had expected, was
locked; and, slipping the letter under it, she went home again. During
lunch her ardour in the cause of Swithin's hurt feelings cooled down,
till she exclaimed to herself, as she sat at her lonely table, 'What
could have possessed me to write in that way!'
After lunch she went faster to the tower than she had gone in the early
morning, and peeped eagerly into the chink under the door. She could
discern no letter, and, on trying the latch, found that the door would
open. The letter was gone, Swithin having obviously arrived in the
interval.
She blushed a blush which seemed to say, 'I am getting foolishly
interested in this young man.' She had, in short, in her own opinion,
somewhat overstepped the bounds of dignity. Her instincts did not square
well with the formalities of her existence, and she walked home
despondently.
Had a concert, bazaar, lecture, or Dorcas meeting required the patronage
and support of Lady Constantine at this juncture, the circumstance would
probably have been sufficient to divert her mind from Swithin St. Cleeve
and astronomy for some little time. But as none of these incidents were
within the range of expectation--Welland House and parish lying far from
large towns and watering-places--the void in her outer life continued,
and with it the void in her life within.
The youth had not answered her letter; neither had he called upon her in
response to the invitation she had regretted, with the rest of the
epistle, as being somewhat too warmly informal for black and white. To
speak tenderly to him was one thing, to write another--that was her
feeling immediately after the event; but his counter-move of silence and
avoidance, though probably the result of pure unconsciousness on his
part, completely dispersed such self-considerations now. Her eyes never
fell upon the Rings-Hill column without a solicitous wonder arising as to
what he was doing. A true woman, she would assume the remotest
possibility to be the most likely contingency, if the possibility had the
recommendation of being tragical; and she now feared that something was
wrong with Swithin St. Cleeve. Yet there was not the least doubt that he
had become so immersed in the business of the new telescope as to forget
everything else.
On Sunday, between the services, she walked to Little Welland, chiefly
for the sake of giving a run to a house-dog, a large St. Bernard, of whom
she was fond. The distance was but short; and she returned along a
narrow lane, divided from the river by a hedge, through whose leafless
twigs the ripples flashed silver lights into her eyes. Here she
discovered Swithin, leaning over a gate, his eyes bent upon the stream.
The dog first attracted his attention; then he heard her, and turned
round. She had never seen him looking so despondent.
'You have never called, though I invited you,' said Lady Constantine.
'My great telescope won't work!' he replied lugubriously.
'I am sorry for that. So it has made you quite forget me?'
'Ah, yes; you wrote me a very kind letter, which I ought to have
answered. Well, I _did_ forget, Lady Constantine. My new telescope
won't work, and I don't know what to do about it at all!'
'Can I assist you any further?'
'No, I fear not. Besides, you have assisted me already.'
'What would really help you out of all your difficulties? Something
would, surely?'
He shook his head.
'There must be some solution to them?'
'O yes,' he replied, with a hypothetical gaze into the stream; '_some_
solution of course--an equatorial, for instance.'
'What's that?'
'Briefly, an impossibility. It is a splendid instrument, with an object
lens of, say, eight or nine inches aperture, mounted with its axis
parallel to the earth's axis, and fitted up with graduated circles for
denoting right ascensions and declinations; besides having special eye-
pieces, a finder, and all sorts of appliances--clock-work to make the
telescope follow the motion in right ascension--I cannot tell you half
the conveniences. Ah, an equatorial is a thing indeed!'
'An equatorial is the one instrument required to make you quite happy?'
'Well, yes.'
'I'll see what I can do.'
'But, Lady Constantine,' cried the amazed astronomer, 'an equatorial such
as I describe costs as much as two grand pianos!'
She was rather staggered at this news; but she rallied gallantly, and
said, 'Never mind. I'll make inquiries.'
'But it could not be put on the tower without people seeing it! It would
have to be fixed to the masonry. And there must be a dome of some kind
to keep off the rain. A tarpaulin might do.'
Lady Constantine reflected. 'It would be a great business, I see,' she
said. 'Though as far as the fixing and roofing go, I would of course
consent to your doing what you liked with the old column. My workmen
could fix it, could they not?'
'O yes. But what would Sir Blount say, if he came home and saw the
goings on?'
Lady Constantine turned aside to hide a sudden displacement of blood from
her cheek. 'Ah--my husband!' she whispered. . . . 'I am just now going
to church,' she added in a repressed and hurried tone. 'I will think of
this matter.'
In church it was with Lady Constantine as with the Lord Angelo of Vienna
in a similar situation--Heaven had her empty words only, and her
invention heard not her tongue. She soon recovered from the momentary
consternation into which she had fallen at Swithin's abrupt query. The
possibility of that young astronomer becoming a renowned scientist by her
aid was a thought which gave her secret pleasure. The course of
rendering him instant material help began to have a great fascination for
her; it was a new and unexpected channel for her cribbed and confined
emotions. With experiences so much wider than his, Lady Constantine saw
that the chances were perhaps a million to one against Swithin St. Cleeve
ever being Astronomer Royal, or Astronomer Extraordinary of any sort; yet
the remaining chance in his favour was one of those possibilities which,
to a woman of bounding intellect and venturesome fancy, are pleasanter to
dwell on than likely issues that have no savour of high speculation in
them. The equatorial question was a great one; and she had caught such a
large spark from his enthusiasm that she could think of nothing so
piquant as how to obtain the important instrument.
When Tabitha Lark arrived at the Great House next day, instead of finding
Lady Constantine in bed, as formerly, she discovered her in the library,
poring over what astronomical works she had been able to unearth from the
worm-eaten shelves. As these publications were, for a science of such
rapid development, somewhat venerable, there was not much help of a
practical kind to be gained from them. Nevertheless, the equatorial
retained a hold upon her fancy, till she became as eager to see one on
the Rings-Hill column as Swithin himself.