On the third morning after the young man's departure Lady Constantine
opened the post-bag anxiously. Though she had risen before four o'clock,
and crossed to the tower through the gray half-light when every blade and
twig were furred with rime, she felt no languor. Expectation could
banish at cock-crow the eye-heaviness which apathy had been unable to
disperse all the day long.
There was, as she had hoped, a letter from Swithin St. Cleeve.
'DEAR LADY CONSTANTINE,
I have quite succeeded in my mission, and
shall return to-morrow at 10 p.m. I hope you have not failed in the
observations. Watching the star through an opera-glass Sunday night,
I fancied some change had taken place, but I could not make myself
sure. Your memoranda for that night I await with impatience.
Please don't neglect to write down _at the moment_, all remarkable
appearances both as to colour and intensity; and be very exact as to
time, which correct in the way I showed you.
I am, dear Lady Constantine, yours most faithfully,
SWITHIN ST. CLEEVE.'
Not another word in the letter about his errand; his mind ran on nothing but this astronomical subject. He had succeeded in his mission, and yet he did not even say yes or no to the great question,--whether or not her
husband was masquerading in London at the address she had given.
'Was ever anything so provoking!' she cried.
However, the time was not long to wait. His way homeward would lie
within a stone's-throw of the manor-house, and though for certain reasons
she had forbidden him to call at the late hour of his arrival, she could
easily intercept him in the avenue. At twenty minutes past ten she went
out into the drive, and stood in the dark. Seven minutes later she heard
his footstep, and saw his outline in the slit of light between the avenue-
trees. He had a valise in one hand, a great-coat on his arm, and under
his arm a parcel which seemed to be very precious, from the manner in
which he held it.
'Lady Constantine?' he asked softly.
'Yes,' she said, in her excitement holding out both her hands, though he
had plainly not expected her to offer one.
'Did you watch the star?' 'I'll tell you everything in detail; but, pray, your errand first!' 'Yes, it's all right. Did you watch every night, not missing one?' 'I forgot to go--twice,' she murmured contritely.
'Oh, Lady Constantine!' he cried in dismay. 'How could you serve me so!
what shall I do?' 'Please forgive me! Indeed, I could not help it. I had watched and
watched, and nothing happened; and somehow my vigilance relaxed when I
found nothing was likely to take place in the star.' 'But the very circumstance of it not having happened, made it all the more likely every day.' 'Have you--seen--' she began imploringly.
Swithin sighed, lowered his thoughts to sublunary things, and told
briefly the story of his journey. Sir Blount Constantine was not in
London at the address which had been anonymously sent her. It was a
mistake of identity. The person who had been seen there Swithin had
sought out. He resembled Sir Blount strongly; but he was a stranger.
'How can I reward you!' she exclaimed, when he had done.
'In no way but by giving me your good wishes in what I am going to tell
you on my own account.' He spoke in tones of mysterious exultation.
'This parcel is going to make my fame!' 'What is it?' 'A huge object-glass for the great telescope I am so busy about! Such a magnificent aid to science has never entered this county before, you may
depend.' He produced from under his arm the carefully cuddled-up package, which
was in shape a round flat disk, like a dinner-plate, tied in paper.
Proceeding to explain his plans to her more fully, he walked with her
towards the door by which she had emerged. It was a little side wicket
through a wall dividing the open park from the garden terraces. Here for
a moment he placed his valise and parcel on the coping of the stone
balustrade, till he had bidden her farewell. Then he turned, and in
laying hold of his bag by the dim light pushed the parcel over the
parapet. It fell smash upon the paved walk ten or a dozen feet beneath.
'Oh, good heavens!' he cried in anguish.
'What?' 'My object-glass broken!' 'Is it of much value?' 'It cost all I possess!' He ran round by the steps to the lower lawn, Lady Constantine following,
as he continued, 'It is a magnificent eight-inch first quality object
lens! I took advantage of my journey to London to get it! I have been
six weeks making the tube of milled board; and as I had not enough money
by twelve pounds for the lens, I borrowed it of my grandmother out of her
last annuity payment. What can be, can be done!' 'Perhaps it is not broken.' He felt on the ground, found the parcel, and shook it. A clicking noise issued from inside. Swithin smote his forehead with his hand, and walked up and down like a mad fellow.
'My telescope! I have waited nine months for this lens. Now the
possibility of setting up a really powerful instrument is over! It is
too cruel--how could it happen! . . . Lady Constantine, I am ashamed of
myself,--before you. Oh, but, Lady Constantine, if you only knew what it
is to a person engaged in science to have the means of clinching a theory
snatched away at the last moment! It is I against the world; and when
the world has accidents on its side in addition to its natural strength,
what chance for me!' The young astronomer leant against the wall, and was silent. His misery
was of an intensity and kind with that of Palissy, in these struggles
with an adverse fate.
'Don't mind it,--pray don't!' said Lady Constantine. 'It is dreadfully
unfortunate! You have my whole sympathy. Can it be mended?' 'Mended,--no, no!' 'Cannot you do with your present one a little longer?' 'It is altogether inferior, cheap, and bad!' 'I'll get you another,--yes, indeed, I will! Allow me to get you another as soon as possible. I'll do anything to assist you out of your trouble; for I am most anxious to see you famous. I know you will be a great
astronomer, in spite of this mishap! Come, say I may get a new one.' Swithin took her hand. He could not trust himself to speak.
* * * * *
Some days later a little box of peculiar kind came to the Great House.
It was addressed to Lady Constantine, 'with great care.' She had it partly
opened and taken to her own little writing-room; and after lunch, when
she had dressed for walking, she took from the box a paper parcel like
the one which had met with the accident. This she hid under her mantle,
as if she had stolen it; and, going out slowly across the lawn, passed
through the little door before spoken of, and was soon hastening in the
direction of the Rings-Hill column.
There was a bright sun overhead on that afternoon of early spring, and
its rays shed an unusual warmth on south-west aspects, though shady
places still retained the look and feel of winter. Rooks were already
beginning to build new nests or to mend up old ones, and clamorously
called in neighbours to give opinions on difficulties in their
architecture. Lady Constantine swerved once from her path, as if she had
decided to go to the homestead where Swithin lived; but on second
thoughts she bent her steps to the column.
Drawing near it she looked up; but by reason of the height of the parapet
nobody could be seen thereon who did not stand on tiptoe. She thought,
however, that her young friend might possibly see her, if he were there,
and come down; and that he was there she soon ascertained by finding the
door unlocked, and the key inside. No movement, however, reached her
ears from above, and she began to ascend.
Meanwhile affairs at the top of the column had progressed as follows.
The afternoon being exceptionally fine, Swithin had ascended about two
o'clock, and, seating himself at the little table which he had
constructed on the spot, he began reading over his notes and examining
some astronomical journals that had reached him in the morning. The sun
blazed into the hollow roof-space as into a tub, and the sides kept out
every breeze. Though the month was February below it was May in the
abacus of the column. This state of the atmosphere, and the fact that on
the previous night he had pursued his observations till past two o'clock,
produced in him at the end of half an hour an overpowering inclination to
sleep. Spreading on the lead-work a thick rug which he kept up there, he
flung himself down against the parapet, and was soon in a state of
unconsciousness.
It was about ten minutes afterwards that a soft rustle of silken clothes
came up the spiral staircase, and, hesitating onwards, reached the
orifice, where appeared the form of Lady Constantine. She did not at
first perceive that he was present, and stood still to reconnoitre.
Her eye glanced over his telescope, now wrapped up, his table and papers, his
observing-chair, and his contrivances for making the best of a deficiency
of instruments. All was warm, sunny, and silent, except that a solitary
bee, which had somehow got within the hollow of the abacus, was singing
round inquiringly, unable to discern that ascent was the only mode of
escape. In another moment she beheld the astronomer, lying in the sun
like a sailor in the main-top.
Lady Constantine coughed slightly; he did not awake. She then entered,
and, drawing the parcel from beneath her cloak, placed it on the table.
After this she waited, looking for a long time at his sleeping face,
which had a very interesting appearance. She seemed reluctant to leave,
yet wanted resolution to wake him; and, pencilling his name on the
parcel, she withdrew to the staircase, where the brushing of her dress
decreased to silence as she receded round and round on her way to the
base.
Swithin still slept on, and presently the rustle began again in the far-
down interior of the column. The door could be heard closing, and the
rustle came nearer, showing that she had shut herself in,--no doubt to
lessen the risk of an accidental surprise by any roaming villager.
When Lady Constantine reappeared at the top, and saw the parcel still
untouched and Swithin asleep as before, she exhibited some
disappointment; but she did not retreat.
Looking again at him, her eyes became so sentimentally fixed on his face
that it seemed as if she could not withdraw them. There lay, in the
shape of an Antinous, no _amoroso_, no gallant, but a guileless
philosopher. His parted lips were lips which spoke, not of love, but of
millions of miles; those were eyes which habitually gazed, not into the
depths of other eyes, but into other worlds. Within his temples dwelt
thoughts, not of woman's looks, but of stellar aspects and the
configuration of constellations.
Thus, to his physical attractiveness was added the attractiveness of
mental inaccessibility. The ennobling influence of scientific pursuits
was demonstrated by the speculative purity which expressed itself in his
eyes whenever he looked at her in speaking, and in the childlike faults
of manner which arose from his obtuseness to their difference of sex.
He had never, since becoming a man, looked even so low as to the level of a
Lady Constantine. His heaven at present was truly in the skies, and not
in that only other place where they say it can be found, in the eyes of
some daughter of Eve. Would any Circe or Calypso--and if so, what
one?--ever check this pale-haired scientist's nocturnal sailings into the
interminable spaces overhead, and hurl all his mighty calculations on
cosmic force and stellar fire into Limbo? Oh, the pity of it, if such
should be the case!
She became much absorbed in these very womanly reflections; and at last
Lady Constantine sighed, perhaps she herself did not exactly know why.
Then a very soft expression lighted on her lips and eyes, and she looked
at one jump ten years more youthful than before--quite a girl in aspect,
younger than he. On the table lay his implements; among them a pair of
scissors, which, to judge from the shreds around, had been used in
cutting curves in thick paper for some calculating process.
What whim, agitation, or attraction prompted the impulse, nobody knows;
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.