XXV
Meanwhile the interior of Welland House was rattling with the progress of the ecclesiastical luncheon.
The Bishop, who sat at Lady Constantine’s side, seemed enchanted with her company, and from the beginning she engrossed his attention almost entirely. The truth was that the circumstance of her not having her whole soul centred on the success of the repast and the pleasure of Bishop Helmsdale, imparted to her, in a great measure, the mood to ensure both. Her brother Louis it was who had laid out the plan of entertaining the Bishop, to which she had assented but indifferently. She was secretly bound to another, on whose career she had staked all her happiness. Having thus other interests she evinced to-day the ease of one who hazards nothing, and there was no sign of that preoccupation with housewifely contingencies which so often makes the hostess hardly recognizable as the charming woman who graced a friend’s home the day before. In marrying Swithin Lady Constantine had played her card, – recklessly, impulsively, ruinously, perhaps; but she had played it; it could not be withdrawn; and she took this morning’s luncheon as an episode that could result in nothing to her beyond the day’s entertainment.
Hence, by that power of indirectness to accomplish in an hour what strenuous aiming will not effect in a life-time, she fascinated the Bishop to an unprecedented degree. A bachelor, he rejoiced in the commanding period of life that stretches between the time of waning impulse and the time of incipient dotage, when a woman can reach the male heart neither by awakening a young man’s passion nor an old man’s infatuation. He must be made to admire, or he can be made to do nothing. Unintentionally that is how Viviette operated on her guest.
Lady Constantine, to external view, was in a position to desire many things, and of a sort to desire them. She was obviously, by nature, impulsive to indiscretion. But instead of exhibiting activities to correspond, recently gratified affection lent to her manner just now a sweet serenity, a truly Christian contentment, which it puzzled the learned Bishop exceedingly to find in a warm young widow, and increased his interest in her every moment. Thus matters stood when the conversation veered round to the morning’s confirmation.
‘That was a singularly engaging young man who came up among Mr. Torkingham’s candidates,’ said the Bishop to her somewhat abruptly.
But abruptness does not catch a woman without her wit. ‘Which one?’ she said innocently.
‘That youth with the “corn-coloured” hair, as a poet of the new school would call it, who sat just at the side of the organ. Do you know who he is?’
In answering Viviette showed a little nervousness, for the first time that day.
‘O yes. He is the son of an unfortunate gentleman who was formerly curate here, – a Mr. St. Cleeve.’
‘I never saw a handsomer young man in my life,’ said the Bishop. Lady Constantine blushed. ‘There was a lack of self-consciousness, too, in his manner of presenting himself, which very much won me. A Mr. St. Cleeve, do you say? A curate’s son? His father must have been St. Cleeve of All Angels, whom I knew. How comes he to be staying on here? What is he doing?’
Mr. Torkingham, who kept one ear on the Bishop all the lunch-time, finding that Lady Constantine was not ready with an answer, hastened to reply: ‘Your lordship is right. His father was an All Angels’ man. The youth is rather to be pitied.’
‘He was a man of talent,’ affirmed the Bishop. ‘But I quite lost sight of him.’
‘He was curate to the late vicar,’ resumed the parson, ‘and was much liked by the parish: but, being erratic in his tastes and tendencies, he rashly contracted a marriage with the daughter of a farmer, and then quarrelled with the local gentry for not taking up his wife. This lad was an only child. There was enough money to educate him, and he is sufficiently well provided for to be independent of the world so long as he is content to live here with great economy. But of course this gives him few opportunities of bettering himself.’
‘Yes, naturally,’ replied the Bishop of Melchester. ‘Better have been left entirely dependent on himself. These half-incomes do men little good, unless they happen to be either weaklings or geniuses.’
Lady Constantine would have given the world to say, ‘He is a genius, and the hope of my life;’ but it would have been decidedly risky, and in another moment was unnecessary, for Mr. Torkingham said, ‘There is a certain genius in this young man, I sometimes think.’
‘Well, he really looks quite out of the common,’ said the Bishop.
‘Youthful genius is sometimes disappointing,’ observed Viviette, not believing it in the least.
‘Yes,’ said the Bishop. ‘Though it depends, Lady Constantine, on what you understand by disappointing. It may produce nothing visible to the world’s eye, and yet may complete its development within to a very perfect degree. Objective achievements, though the only ones which are counted, are not the only ones that exist and have value; and I for one should be sorry to assert that, because a man of genius dies as unknown to the world as when he was born, he therefore was an instance of wasted material.’
Objective achievements were, however, those that Lady Constantine had a weakness for in the present case, and she asked her more experienced guest if he thought early development of a special talent a good sign in youth.
The Bishop thought it well that a particular bent should not show itself too early, lest disgust should result.
‘Still,’ argued Lady Constantine rather firmly (for she felt this opinion of the Bishop’s to be one throwing doubt on Swithin), ‘sustained fruition is compatible with early bias. Tycho Brahe showed quite a passion for the solar system when he was but a youth, and so did Kepler; and James Ferguson had a surprising knowledge of the stars by the time he was eleven or twelve.’
‘Yes; sustained fruition,’ conceded the Bishop (rather liking the words), ‘is certainly compatible with early bias. Fenelon preached at fourteen.’
‘He – Mr. St. Cleeve – is not in the church,’ said Lady Constantine.
‘He is a scientific young man, my lord,’ explained Mr. Torkingham.
‘An astronomer,’ she added, with suppressed pride.
‘An astronomer! Really, that makes him still more interesting than being handsome and the son of a man I knew. How and where does he study astronomy?’
‘He has a beautiful observatory. He has made use of an old column that was erected on this manor to the memory of one of the Constantines. It has been very ingeniously adapted for his purpose, and he does very good work there. I believe he occasionally sends up a paper to the Royal Society, or Greenwich, or somewhere, and to astronomical periodicals.’
‘I should have had no idea, from his boyish look, that he had advanced so far,’ the Bishop answered. ‘And yet I saw on his face that within there was a book worth studying. His is a career I should very much like to watch.’
A thrill of pleasure chased through Lady Constantine’s heart at this praise of her chosen one. It was an unwitting compliment to her taste and discernment in singling him out for her own, despite its temporary inexpediency.
Her brother Louis now spoke. ‘I fancy he is as interested in one of his fellow-creatures as in the science of astronomy,’ observed the cynic dryly.
‘In whom?’ said Lady Constantine quickly.
‘In the fair maiden who sat at the organ, – a pretty girl, rather. I noticed a sort of by-play going on between them occasionally, during the sermon, which meant mating, if I am not mistaken.’
‘She!’ said Lady Constantine. ‘She is only a village girl, a dairyman’s daughter, – Tabitha Lark, who used to come to read to me.’
‘She may be a savage, for all that I know: but there is something between those two young people, nevertheless.’
The Bishop looked as if he had allowed his interest in a stranger to carry him too far, and Mr. Torkingham was horrified at the irreverent and easy familiarity of Louis Glanville’s talk in the presence of a consecrated bishop. As for Viviette, her tongue lost all its volubility. She felt quite faint at heart, and hardly knew how to control herself.
‘I have never noticed anything of the sort,’ said Mr. Torkingham.
‘It would be a matter for regret,’ said the Bishop, ‘if he should follow his father in forming an attachment that would be a hindrance to him in any honourable career; though perhaps an early marriage, intrinsically considered, would not be bad for him. A youth who looks as if he had come straight from old Greece may be exposed to many temptations, should he go out into the world without a friend or counsellor to guide him.’
Despite her sudden jealousy Viviette’s eyes grew moist at the picture of her innocent Swithin going into the world without a friend or counsellor. But she was sick in soul and disquieted still by Louis’s dreadful remarks, who, unbeliever as he was in human virtue, could have no reason whatever for representing Swithin as engaged in a private love affair if such were not his honest impression.
She was so absorbed during the remainder of the luncheon that she did not even observe the kindly light that her presence was shedding on the right reverend ecclesiastic by her side. He reflected it back in tones duly mellowed by his position; the minor clergy caught up the rays thereof, and so the gentle influence played down the table.
The company soon departed when luncheon was over, and the remainder of the day passed in quietness, the Bishop being occupied in his room at the vicarage with writing letters or a sermon. Having a long journey before him the next day he had expressed a wish to be housed for the night without ceremony, and would have dined alone with Mr. Torkingham but that, by a happy thought, Lady Constantine and her brother were asked to join them.
However, when Louis crossed the churchyard and entered the vicarage drawing-room at seven o’clock, his sister was not in his company. She was, he said, suffering from a slight headache, and much regretted that she was on that account unable to come. At this intelligence the social sparkle disappeared from the Bishop’s eye, and he sat down to table, endeavouring to mould into the form of episcopal serenity an expression which was really one of common human disappointment.
In his simple statement Louis Glanville had by no means expressed all the circumstances which accompanied his sister’s refusal, at the last moment, to dine at her neighbour’s house. Louis had strongly urged her to bear up against her slight indisposition – if it were that, and not disinclination – and come along with him on just this one occasion, perhaps a more important episode in her life than she was aware of. Viviette thereupon knew quite well that he alluded to the favourable impression she was producing on the Bishop, notwithstanding that neither of them mentioned the Bishop’s name. But she did not give way, though the argument waxed strong between them; and Louis left her in no very amiable mood, saying, ‘I don’t believe you have any more headache than I have, Viviette. It is some provoking whim of yours – nothing more.’
In this there was a substratum of truth. When her brother had left her, and she had seen him from the window entering the vicarage gate, Viviette seemed to be much relieved, and sat down in her bedroom till the evening grew dark, and only the lights shining through the trees from the parsonage dining-room revealed to the eye where that dwelling stood. Then she arose, and putting on the cloak she had used so many times before for the same purpose, she locked her bedroom door (to be supposed within, in case of the accidental approach of a servant), and let herself privately out of the house.
Lady Constantine paused for a moment under the vicarage windows, till she could sufficiently well hear the voices of the diners to be sure that they were actually within, and then went on her way, which was towards the Rings-Hill column. She appeared a mere spot, hardly distinguishable from the grass, as she crossed the open ground, and soon became absorbed in the black mass of the fir plantation.
Meanwhile the conversation at Mr. Torkingham’s dinner-table was not of a highly exhilarating quality. The parson, in long self-communing during the afternoon, had decided that the Diocesan Synod, whose annual session at Melchester had occurred in the month previous, would afford a solid and unimpeachable subject to launch during the meal, whenever conversation flagged; and that it would be one likely to win the respect of his spiritual chieftain for himself as the introducer. Accordingly, in the further belief that you could not have too much of a good thing, Mr. Torkingham not only acted upon his idea, but at every pause rallied to the synod point with unbroken firmness. Everything which had been discussed at that last session – such as the introduction of the lay element into the councils of the church, the reconstitution of the ecclesiastical courts, church patronage, the tithe question – was revived by Mr. Torkingham, and the excellent remarks which the Bishop had made in his addresses on those subjects were quoted back to him.
As for Bishop Helmsdale himself, his instincts seemed to be to allude in a debonair spirit to the incidents of the past day – to the flowers in Lady Constantine’s beds, the date of her house – perhaps with a view of hearing a little more about their owner from Louis, who would very readily have followed the Bishop’s lead had the parson allowed him room. But this Mr. Torkingham seldom did, and about half-past nine they prepared to separate.
Louis Glanville had risen from the table, and was standing by the window, looking out upon the sky, and privately yawning, the topics discussed having been hardly in his line.
‘A fine night,’ he said at last.
‘I suppose our young astronomer is hard at work now,’ said the Bishop, following the direction of Louis’s glance towards the clear sky.
‘Yes,’ said the parson; ‘he is very assiduous whenever the nights are good for observation. I have occasionally joined him in his tower, and looked through his telescope with great benefit to my ideas of celestial phenomena. I have not seen what he has been doing lately.’
‘Suppose we stroll that way?’ said Louis. ‘Would you be interested in seeing the observatory, Bishop?’
‘I am quite willing to go,’ said the Bishop, ‘if the distance is not too great. I should not be at all averse to making the acquaintance of so exceptional a young man as this Mr. St. Cleeve seems to be; and I have never seen the inside of an observatory in my life.’
The intention was no sooner formed than it was carried out, Mr. Torkingham leading the way.
XXVI
Half an hour before this time Swithin St. Cleeve had been sitting in his cabin at the base of the column, working out some figures from observations taken on preceding nights, with a view to a theory that he had in his head on the motions of certain so-called fixed stars.
The evening being a little chilly a small fire was burning in the stove, and this and the shaded lamp before him lent a remarkably cosy air to the chamber. He was awakened from his reveries by a scratching at the window-pane like that of the point of an ivy leaf, which he knew to be really caused by the tip of his sweetheart-wife’s forefinger. He rose and opened the door to admit her, not without astonishment as to how she had been able to get away from her friends.
‘Dearest Viv, why, what’s the matter?’ he said, perceiving that her face, as the lamplight fell on it, was sad, and even stormy.
‘I thought I would run across to see you. I have heard something so – so – to your discredit, and I know it can’t be true! I know you are constancy itself; but your constancy produces strange effects in people’s eyes!’
‘Good heavens! Nobody has found us out – ’
‘No, no – it is not that. You know, Swithin, that I am always sincere, and willing to own if I am to blame in anything. Now will you prove to me that you are the same by owning some fault to me?’
‘Yes, dear, indeed; directly I can think of one worth owning.’
‘I wonder one does not rush upon your tongue in a moment!’
‘I confess that I am sufficiently a Pharisee not to experience that spontaneity.’
‘Swithin, don’t speak so affectedly, when you know so well what I mean! Is it nothing to you that, after all our vows for life, you have thought it right to – flirt with a village girl?’
‘O Viviette!’ interrupted Swithin, taking her hand, which was hot and trembling. ‘You who are full of noble and generous feelings, and regard me with devoted tenderness that has never been surpassed by woman, – how can you be so greatly at fault? I flirt, Viviette? By thinking that you injure yourself in my eyes. Why, I am so far from doing so that I continually pull myself up for watching you too jealously, as to-day, when I have been dreading the effect upon you of other company in my absence, and thinking that you rather shut the gates against me when you have big-wigs to entertain.’
‘Do you, Swithin?’ she cried. It was evident that the honest tone of his words was having a great effect in clearing away the clouds. She added with an uncertain smile, ‘But how can I believe that, after what was seen to-day? My brother, not knowing in the least that I had an iota of interest in you, told me that he witnessed the signs of an attachment between you and Tabitha Lark in church, this morning.’
‘Ah!’ cried Swithin, with a burst of laughter. ‘Now I know what you mean, and what has caused this misunderstanding! How good of you, Viviette, to come at once and have it out with me, instead of brooding over it with dark imaginings, and thinking bitter things of me, as many women would have done!’ He succinctly told the whole story of his little adventure with Tabitha that morning; and the sky was clear on both sides. ‘When shall I be able to claim you,’ he added, ‘and put an end to all such painful accidents as these?’
She partially sighed. Her perception of what the outside world was made of, latterly somewhat obscured by solitude and her lover’s company, had been revived to-day by her entertainment of the Bishop, clergymen, and, more particularly, clergymen’s wives; and it did not diminish her sense of the difficulties in Swithin’s path to see anew how little was thought of the greatest gifts, mental and spiritual, if they were not backed up by substantial temporalities. However, the pair made the best of their future that circumstances permitted, and the interview was at length drawing to a close when there came, without the slightest forewarning, a smart rat-tat-tat upon the little door.
‘O I am lost!’ said Viviette, seizing his arm. ‘Why was I so incautious?’
‘It is nobody of consequence,’ whispered Swithin assuringly. ‘Somebody from my grandmother, probably, to know when I am coming home.’
They were unperceived so far, for the only window which gave light to the hut was screened by a curtain. At that moment they heard the sound of their visitors’ voices, and, with a consternation as great as her own, Swithin discerned the tones of Mr. Torkingham and the Bishop of Melchester.
‘Where shall I get? What shall I do?’ said the poor lady, clasping her hands.
Swithin looked around the cabin, and a very little look was required to take in all its resources. At one end, as previously explained, were a table, stove, chair, cupboard, and so on; while the other was completely occupied by a diminutive Arabian bedstead, hung with curtains of pink-and-white chintz. On the inside of the bed there was a narrow channel, about a foot wide, between it and the wall of the hut. Into this cramped retreat Viviette slid herself, and stood trembling behind the curtains.
By this time the knock had been repeated more loudly, the light through the window-blind unhappily revealing the presence of some inmate. Swithin threw open the door, and Mr. Torkingham introduced his visitors.
The Bishop shook hands with the young man, told him he had known his father, and at Swithin’s invitation, weak as it was, entered the cabin, the vicar and Louis Glanville remaining on the threshold, not to inconveniently crowd the limited space within.
Bishop Helmsdale looked benignantly around the apartment, and said, ‘Quite a settlement in the backwoods – quite: far enough from the world to afford the votary of science the seclusion he needs, and not so far as to limit his resources. A hermit might apparently live here in as much solitude as in a primeval forest.’
‘His lordship has been good enough to express an interest in your studies,’ said Mr. Torkingham to St. Cleeve. ‘And we have come to ask you to let us see the observatory.’
‘With great pleasure,’ stammered Swithin.
‘Where is the observatory?’ inquired the Bishop, peering round again.
‘The staircase is just outside this door,’ Swithin answered. ‘I am at your lordship’s service, and will show you up at once.’
‘And this is your little bed, for use when you work late,’ said the Bishop.
‘Yes; I am afraid it is rather untidy,’ Swithin apologized.
‘And here are your books,’ the Bishop continued, turning to the table and the shaded lamp. ‘You take an observation at the top, I presume, and come down here to record your observations.’
The young man explained his precise processes as well as his state of mind would let him, and while he was doing so Mr. Torkingham and Louis waited patiently without, looking sometimes into the night, and sometimes through the door at the interlocutors, and listening to their scientific converse. When all had been exhibited here below, Swithin lit his lantern, and, inviting his visitors to follow, led the way up the column, experiencing no small sense of relief as soon as he heard the footsteps of all three tramping on the stairs behind him. He knew very well that, once they were inside the spiral, Viviette was out of danger, her knowledge of the locality enabling her to find her way with perfect safety through the plantation, and into the park home.
At the top he uncovered his equatorial, and, for the first time at ease, explained to them its beauties, and revealed by its help the glories of those stars that were eligible for inspection. The Bishop spoke as intelligently as could be expected on a topic not peculiarly his own; but, somehow, he seemed rather more abstracted in manner now than when he had arrived. Swithin thought that perhaps the long clamber up the stairs, coming after a hard day’s work, had taken his spontaneity out of him, and Mr. Torkingham was afraid that his lordship was getting bored. But this did not appear to be the case; for though he said little he stayed on some time longer, examining the construction of the dome after relinquishing the telescope; while occasionally Swithin caught the eyes of the Bishop fixed hard on him.
‘Perhaps he sees some likeness of my father in me,’ the young man thought; and the party making ready to leave at this time he conducted them to the bottom of the tower.
Swithin was not prepared for what followed their descent. All were standing at the foot of the staircase. The astronomer, lantern in hand, offered to show them the way out of the plantation, to which Mr. Torkingham replied that he knew the way very well, and would not trouble his young friend. He strode forward with the words, and Louis followed him, after waiting a moment and finding that the Bishop would not take the precedence. The latter and Swithin were thus left together for one moment, whereupon the Bishop turned.
‘Mr. St. Cleeve,’ he said in a strange voice, ‘I should like to speak to you privately, before I leave, to-morrow morning. Can you meet me – let me see – in the churchyard, at half-past ten o’clock?’
‘O yes, my lord, certainly,’ said Swithin. And before he had recovered from his surprise the Bishop had joined the others in the shades of the plantation.
Swithin immediately opened the door of the hut, and scanned the nook behind the bed. As he had expected his bird had flown.