Thomas Hardy - Two on a Tower

‘If Sir Blount were to come back all of a sudden – oh, my!’

Lady Constantine grew cold as ice.

‘There’s nothing in it,’ said Tabitha scornfully. ‘I could prove it any day.’

‘Well, I wish I had half her chance!’ sighed the lady’s maid. And no more was said on the subject then.

Tabitha’s remark showed that the suspicion was quite in embryo as yet. Nevertheless, saying nothing to reveal what she had overheard, immediately after the reading Lady Constantine flew like a bird to where she knew that Swithin might be found.

He was in the plantation, setting up little sticks to mark where the wooden cabin was to stand. She called him to a remote place under the funereal trees.

‘I have altered my mind,’ she said. ‘I can have nothing to do with this matter.’

‘Indeed?’ said Swithin, surprised.

‘Astronomy is not my hobby any longer. And you are not my Astronomer Royal.’

‘O Lady Constantine!’ cried the youth, aghast. ‘Why, the work is begun! I thought the equatorial was ordered.’

She dropped her voice, though a Jericho shout would not have been overheard: ‘Of course astronomy is my hobby privately, and you are to be my Astronomer Royal, and I still furnish the observatory; but not to the outer world. There is a reason against my indulgence in such scientific fancies openly; and the project must be arranged in this wise. The whole enterprise is yours: you rent the tower of me: you build the cabin: you get the equatorial. I simply give permission, since you desire it. The path that was to be made from the hill to the park is not to be thought of. There is to be no communication between the house and the column. The equatorial will arrive addressed to you, and its cost I will pay through you. My name must not appear, and I vanish entirely from the undertaking… This blind is necessary,’ she added, sighing. ‘Good-bye!’

‘But you do take as much interest as before, and it will be yours just the same?’ he said, walking after her. He scarcely comprehended the subterfuge, and was absolutely blind as to its reason.

‘Can you doubt it? But I dare not do it openly.’

With this she went away; and in due time there circulated through the parish an assertion that it was a mistake to suppose Lady Constantine had anything to do with Swithin St. Cleeve or his star-gazing schemes. She had merely allowed him to rent the tower of her for use as his observatory, and to put some temporary fixtures on it for that purpose.

After this Lady Constantine lapsed into her former life of loneliness; and by these prompt measures the ghost of a rumour which had barely started into existence was speedily laid to rest. It had probably originated in her own dwelling, and had gone but little further. Yet, despite her self-control, a certain north window of the Great House, that commanded an uninterrupted view of the upper ten feet of the column, revealed her to be somewhat frequently gazing from it at a rotundity which had begun to appear on the summit. To those with whom she came in contact she sometimes addressed such remarks as, ‘Is young Mr. St. Cleeve getting on with his observatory? I hope he will fix his instruments without damaging the column, which is so interesting to us as being in memory of my dear husband’s great-grandfather – a truly brave man.’

On one occasion her building-steward ventured to suggest to her that, Sir Blount having deputed to her the power to grant short leases in his absence, she should have a distinctive agreement with Swithin, as between landlord and tenant, with a stringent clause against his driving nails into the stonework of such an historical memorial. She replied that she did not wish to be severe on the last representative of such old and respected parishioners as St. Cleeve’s mother’s family had been, and of such a well-descended family as his father’s; so that it would only be necessary for the steward to keep an eye on Mr. St. Cleeve’s doings.

Further, when a letter arrived at the Great House from Hilton and Pimm’s, the opticians, with information that the equatorial was ready and packed, and that a man would be sent with it to fix it, she replied to that firm to the effect that their letter should have been addressed to Mr. St. Cleeve, the local astronomer, on whose behalf she had made the inquiries; that she had nothing more to do with the matter; that he would receive the instrument and pay the bill, – her guarantee being given for the latter performance.

Lady Constantine then had the pleasure of beholding a waggon, laden with packing-cases, moving across the field towards the pillar; and not many days later Swithin, who had never come to the Great House since the luncheon, met her in a path which he knew to be one of her promenades.

‘The equatorial is fixed, and the man gone,’ he said, half in doubt as to his speech, for her commands to him not to recognize her agency or patronage still puzzled him. ‘I respectfully wish – you could come and see it, Lady Constantine.’

‘I would rather not; I cannot.’

‘Saturn is lovely; Jupiter is simply sublime; I can see double stars in the Lion and in the Virgin, where I had seen only a single one before. It is all I required to set me going!’

‘I’ll come. But – you need say nothing about my visit. I cannot come to-night, but I will some time this week. Yet only this once, to try the instrument. Afterwards you must be content to pursue your studies alone.’

Swithin seemed but little affected at this announcement. ‘Hilton and Pimm’s man handed me the bill,’ he continued.

‘How much is it?’

He told her. ‘And the man who has built the hut and dome, and done the other fixing, has sent in his.’ He named this amount also.

‘Very well. They shall be settled with. My debts must be paid with my money, which you shall have at once, – in cash, since a cheque would hardly do. Come to the house for it this evening. But no, no – you must not come openly; such is the world. Come to the window – the window that is exactly in a line with the long snowdrop bed, in the south front – at eight to-night, and I will give you what is necessary.’

‘Certainly, Lady Constantine,’ said the young man.

At eight that evening accordingly, Swithin entered like a spectre upon the terrace to seek out the spot she had designated. The equatorial had so entirely absorbed his thoughts that he did not trouble himself seriously to conjecture the why and wherefore of her secrecy. If he casually thought of it, he set it down in a general way to an intensely generous wish on her part not to lessen his influence among the poorer inhabitants by making him appear the object of patronage.

While he stood by the long snowdrop bed, which looked up at him like a nether Milky Way, the French casement of the window opposite softly opened, and a hand bordered by a glimmer of lace was stretched forth, from which he received a crisp little parcel, – bank-notes, apparently. He knew the hand, and held it long enough to press it to his lips, the only form which had ever occurred to him of expressing his gratitude to her without the incumbrance of clumsy words, a vehicle at the best of times but rudely suited to such delicate merchandise. The hand was hastily withdrawn, as if the treatment had been unexpected. Then seemingly moved by second thoughts she bent forward and said, ‘Is the night good for observations?’

‘Perfect.’

She paused. ‘Then I’ll come to-night,’ she at last said. ‘It makes no difference to me, after all. Wait just one moment.’

He waited, and she presently emerged, muffled up like a nun; whereupon they left the terrace and struck across the park together.

Very little was said by either till they were crossing the fallow, when he asked if his arm would help her. She did not take the offered support just then; but when they were ascending the prehistoric earthwork, under the heavy gloom of the fir-trees, she seized it, as if rather influenced by the oppressive solitude than by fatigue.