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.
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.