Two on a Tower. Thomas Hardy
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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.
The upshot of it was that Lady Constantine sent a messenger that evening to Welland Bottom, where the homestead of Swithin’s grandmother was situated, requesting the young man’s presence at the house at twelve o’clock next day.
He hurriedly returned an obedient reply, and the promise was enough to lend great freshness to her manner next morning, instead of the leaden air which was too frequent with her before the sun reached the meridian, and sometimes after. Swithin had, in fact, arisen as an attractive little intervention between herself and despair.
VII
A fog defaced all the trees of the park that morning, the white atmosphere adhered to the ground like a fungoid growth from it, and made the turfed undulations look slimy and raw. But Lady Constantine settled down in her chair to await the coming of the late curate’s son with a serenity which the vast blanks outside could neither baffle nor destroy.
At two minutes to twelve the door-bell rang, and a look overspread the lady’s face that was neither maternal, sisterly, nor amorous; but partook in an indescribable manner of all three kinds. The door was flung open and the young man was ushered in, the fog still clinging to his hair, in which she could discern a little notch where she had nipped off the curl.
A speechlessness that socially was a defect in him was to her view a piquant attribute just now. He looked somewhat alarmed.
‘Lady Constantine, have I done anything, that you have sent – ?’ he began breathlessly, as he gazed in her face, with parted lips.
‘O no, of course not! I have decided to do something, – nothing more,’ she smilingly said, holding out her hand, which he rather gingerly touched. ‘Don’t look so concerned. Who makes equatorials?’
This remark was like the drawing of a weir-hatch and she was speedily inundated with all she wished to know concerning astronomical opticians. When he had imparted the particulars he waited, manifestly burning to know whither these inquiries tended.
‘I am not going to buy you one,’ she said gently.
He looked as if he would faint.
‘Certainly not. I do not wish it. I – could not have accepted it,’ faltered the young man.
‘But I am going to buy one for myself. I lack a hobby, and I shall choose astronomy. I shall fix my equatorial on the column.’
Swithin brightened up.
‘And I shall let you have the use of it whenever you choose. In brief, Swithin St. Cleeve shall be Lady Constantine’s Astronomer Royal; and she – and she – ’
‘Shall be his Queen.’ The words came not much the worse for being uttered only in the tone of one anxious to complete a tardy sentence.
‘Well, that’s what I have decided to do,’ resumed Lady Constantine. ‘I will write to these opticians at once.’
There seemed to be no more for him to do than to thank her for the privilege, whenever it should be available, which he promptly did, and then made as if to go. But Lady Constantine detained him with, ‘Have you ever seen my library?’
‘No; never.’
‘You don’t say you would like to see it.’
‘But I should.’
‘It is the third door on the right. You can find your way in, and you can stay there as long as you like.’
Swithin then left the morning-room for the apartment designated, and amused himself in that ‘soul of the house,’ as Cicero defined it, till he heard the lunch bell sounding from the turret, when he came down from the library steps, and thought it time to go home. But at that moment a servant entered to inquire whether he would or would not prefer to have his lunch brought in to him there; upon his replying in the affirmative a large tray arrived on the stomach of a footman, and Swithin was greatly surprised to see a whole pheasant placed at his disposal.
Having breakfasted at eight that morning, and having been much in the open air afterwards, the Adonis-astronomer’s appetite assumed grand proportions. How much of that pheasant he might consistently eat without hurting his dear patroness Lady Constantine’s feelings, when he could readily eat it all, was a problem in which the reasonableness of a larger and larger quantity argued itself inversely as a smaller and smaller quantity remained. When, at length, he had finally decided on a terminal point in the body of the bird, the door was gently opened.
‘Oh, you have not finished?’ came to him over his shoulder, in a considerate voice.
‘O yes, thank you, Lady Constantine,’ he said, jumping up.
‘Why did you prefer to lunch in this awkward, dusty place?’
‘I thought – it would be better,’ said Swithin simply.
‘There is fruit in the other room, if you like to come. But perhaps you would rather not?’
‘O yes, I should much like to,’ said Swithin, walking over his napkin, and following her as she led the way to the adjoining apartment.
Here, while she asked him what he had been reading, he modestly ventured on an apple, in whose flavour he recognized the familiar taste of old friends robbed from her husband’s orchards in his childhood, long before Lady Constantine’s advent on the scene. She supposed he had confined his search to his own sublime subject, astronomy?
Swithin suddenly became older to the eye, as his thoughts reverted to the topic thus reintroduced. ‘Yes,’ he informed her. ‘I seldom read any other subject. In these days the secret of productive study is to avoid well.’
‘Did you find any good treatises?’
‘None. The theories in your books are almost as obsolete as the Ptolemaic System. Only fancy, that magnificent Cyclopædia, leather-bound, and stamped, and gilt, and wide margined, and bearing the blazon of your house in magnificent colours, says that the twinkling of the stars is probably caused by heavenly bodies passing in front of them in their revolutions.’
‘And is it not so? That was what I learned when I was a girl.’
The modern Eudoxus now rose above the embarrassing horizon of Lady Constantine’s great house, magnificent furniture, and awe-inspiring footman. He became quite natural, all his self-consciousness fled, and his eye spoke into hers no less than his lips to her ears, as he said, ‘How such a theory can have lingered on to this day beats conjecture! Francois Arago, as long as forty or fifty years ago, conclusively established the fact that scintillation is the simplest thing in the world, – merely a matter of atmosphere. But I won’t speak of this to you now. The comparative absence of scintillation in warm countries was noticed by Humboldt. Then, again, the scintillations vary. No star flaps his wings like Sirius when he lies low! He flashes out emeralds and rubies, amethystine flames and sapphirine colours, in a manner quite marvellous to behold, and this is only one star! So, too, do Arcturus, and Capella, and lesser luminaries… But I tire you with this subject?’
‘On the contrary, you speak so beautifully that I could listen all day.’
The astronomer threw a searching glance upon her for a moment; but there was no satire in the warm soft eyes which