XVI

After this there only remained to be settled between them the practical

details of the project.

These were that he should leave home in a couple of days, and take

lodgings either in the distant city of Bath or in a convenient suburb of

London, till a sufficient time should have elapsed to satisfy legal

requirements; that on a fine morning at the end of this time she should

hie away to the same place, and be met at the station by St. Cleeve,

armed with the marriage license; whence they should at once proceed to

the church fixed upon for the ceremony; returning home independently in

the course of the next two or three days.

While these tactics were under discussion the two-and-thirty winds of

heaven continued, as before, to beat about the tower, though their onsets

appeared to be somewhat lessening in force. Himself now calmed and

satisfied, Swithin, as is the wont of humanity, took serener views of

Nature's crushing mechanics without, and said, 'The wind doesn't seem

disposed to put the tragic period to our hopes and fears that I spoke of

in my momentary despair.'

'The disposition of the wind is as vicious as ever,' she answered,

looking into his face with pausing thoughts on, perhaps, other subjects

than that discussed. 'It is your mood of viewing it that has changed.

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."'

And, as if flatly to stultify Swithin's assumption, a circular hurricane,

exceeding in violence any that had preceded it, seized hold upon Rings-

Hill Speer at that moment with the determination of a conscious agent.

The first sensation of a resulting catastrophe was conveyed to their

intelligence by the flapping of the candle-flame against the

lantern-glass; then the wind, which hitherto they had heard rather than

felt, rubbed past them like a fugitive. Swithin beheld around and above

him, in place of the concavity of the dome, the open heaven, with its

racing clouds, remote horizon, and intermittent gleam of stars. The dome

that had covered the tower had been whirled off bodily; and they heard it

descend crashing upon the trees.

Finding himself untouched Swithin stretched out his arms towards Lady

Constantine, whose apparel had been seized by the spinning air, nearly

lifting her off her legs. She, too, was as yet unharmed. Each held the

other for a moment, when, fearing that something further would happen,

they took shelter in the staircase.

'Dearest, what an escape!' he said, still holding her.

'What is the accident?' she asked. 'Has the whole top really gone?'

'The dome has been blown off the roof.'

As soon as it was practicable he relit the extinguished lantern, and they

emerged again upon the leads, where the extent of the disaster became at

once apparent. Saving the absence of the enclosing hemisphere all

remained the same. The dome, being constructed of wood, was light by

comparison with the rest of the structure, and the wheels which allowed

it horizontal, or, as Swithin expressed it, azimuth motion, denied it a

firm hold upon the walls; so that it had been lifted off them like a

cover from a pot. The equatorial stood in the midst as it had stood

before.

Having executed its grotesque purpose the wind sank to comparative

mildness. Swithin took advantage of this lull by covering up the

instruments with cloths, after which the betrothed couple prepared to go

downstairs.

But the events of the night had not yet fully disclosed themselves. At

this moment there was a sound of footsteps and a knocking at the door

below.

'It can't be for me!' said Lady Constantine. 'I retired to my room

before leaving the house, and told them on no account to disturb me.'

She remained at the top while Swithin went down the spiral. In the gloom

he beheld Hannah.

'O Master Swithin, can ye come home! The wind have blowed down the

chimley that don't smoke, and the pinning-end with it; and the old

ancient house, that have been in your family so long as the memory of

man, is naked to the world! It is a mercy that your grammer were not

killed, sitting by the hearth, poor old soul, and soon to walk wi'

God,--for 'a 's getting wambling on her pins, Mr. Swithin, as aged folks

do. As I say, 'a was all but murdered by the elements, and doing no more

harm than the babes in the wood, nor speaking one harmful word. And the

fire and smoke were blowed all across house like a chapter in Revelation;

and your poor reverent father's features scorched to flakes, looking like

the vilest ruffian, and the gilt frame spoiled! Every flitch, every eye-

piece, and every chine is buried under the walling; and I fed them pigs

with my own hands, Master Swithin, little thinking they would come to

this end. Do ye collect yourself, Mr. Swithin, and come at once!'

'I will,--I will. I'll follow you in a moment. Do you hasten back again

and assist.'

When Hannah had departed the young man ran up to Lady Constantine, to

whom he explained the accident. After sympathizing with old Mrs. Martin

Lady Constantine added, 'I thought something would occur to mar our

scheme!'

'I am not quite sure of that yet.'

On a short consideration with him, she agreed to wait at the top of the

tower till he could come back and inform her if the accident were really

so serious as to interfere with his plan for departure. He then left

her, and there she sat in the dark, alone, looking over the parapet, and

straining her eyes in the direction of the homestead.

At first all was obscurity; but when he had been gone about ten minutes

lights began to move to and fro in the hollow where the house stood, and

shouts occasionally mingled with the wind, which retained some violence

yet, playing over the trees beneath her as on the strings of a lyre. But

not a bough of them was visible, a cloak of blackness covering everything

netherward; while overhead the windy sky looked down with a strange and

disguised face, the three or four stars that alone were visible being so

dissociated by clouds that she knew not which they were. Under any other

circumstances Lady Constantine might have felt a nameless fear in thus

sitting aloft on a lonely column, with a forest groaning under her feet,

and palaeolithic dead men feeding its roots; but the recent passionate

decision stirred her pulses to an intensity beside which the ordinary

tremors of feminine existence asserted themselves in vain. The

apocalyptic effect of the scene surrounding her was, indeed, not

inharmonious, and afforded an appropriate background to her intentions.

After what seemed to her an interminable space of time, quick steps in

the staircase became audible above the roar of the firs, and in a few

instants St. Cleeve again stood beside her.

The case of the homestead was serious. Hannah's account had not been

exaggerated in substance: the gable end of the house was open to the

garden; the joists, left without support, had dropped, and with them the

upper floor. By the help of some labourers, who lived near, and Lady

Constantine's man Anthony, who was passing at the time, the homestead had

been propped up, and protected for the night by some rickcloths; but

Swithin felt that it would be selfish in the highest degree to leave two

lonely old women to themselves at this juncture. 'In short,' he

concluded despondently, 'I cannot go to stay in Bath or London just now;

perhaps not for another fortnight!'

'Never mind,' she said. 'A fortnight hence will do as well.'

'And I have these for you,' he continued. 'Your man Green was passing my

grandmother's on his way back from Warborne, where he had been, he says,

for any letters that had come for you by the evening post. As he stayed

to assist the other men I told him I would go on to your house with the

letters he had brought. Of course I did not tell him I should see you

here.'

'Thank you. Of course not. Now I'll return at once.'

In descending the column her eye fell upon the superscription of one of

the letters, and she opened and glanced over it by the lantern light. She

seemed startled, and, musing, said, 'The postponement of our--intention

must be, I fear, for a long time. I find that after the end of this

month I cannot leave home safely, even for a day.' Perceiving that he

was about to ask why, she added, 'I will not trouble you with the reason

now; it would only harass you. It is only a family business, and cannot

be helped.'

'Then we cannot be married till--God knows when!' said Swithin blankly.

'I cannot leave home till after the next week or two; you cannot leave

home unless within that time. So what are we to do?'

'I do not know.'

'My dear, dear one, don't let us be beaten like this! Don't let a well-

considered plan be overthrown by a mere accident! Here's a remedy. Do

_you_ go and stay the requisite time in the parish we are to be married

in, instead of me. When my grandmother is again well housed I can come

to you, instead of you to me, as we first said. Then it can be done

within the time.'

Reluctantly, shyly, and yet with a certain gladness of heart, she gave

way to his proposal that they should change places in the programme.

There was much that she did not like in it, she said. It seemed to her

as if she were taking the initiative by going and attending to the

preliminaries. It was the man's part to do that, in her opinion, and was

usually undertaken by him.

'But,' argued Swithin, 'there are cases in which the woman does give the

notices, and so on; that is to say, when the man is absolutely hindered

from doing so; and ours is such a case. The seeming is nothing; I know

the truth, and what does it matter? You do not refuse--retract your word

to be my wife, because, to avoid a sickening delay, the formalities

require you to attend to them in place of me?'

She did not refuse, she said. In short she agreed to his entreaty. They

had, in truth, gone so far in their dream of union that there was no

drawing back now. Whichever of them was forced by circumstances to be

the protagonist in the enterprise, the thing must be done. Their

intention to become husband and wife, at first halting and timorous, had

accumulated momentum with the lapse of hours, till it now bore down every

obstacle in its course.

'Since you beg me to,--since there is no alternative between my going and

a long postponement,' she said, as they stood in the dark porch of

Welland House before parting,--'since I am to go first, and seem to be

the pioneer in this adventure, promise me, Swithin, promise your

Viviette, that in years to come, when perhaps you may not love me so

warmly as you do now--'

'That will never be.'

'Well, hoping it will not, but supposing it should, promise me that you

will never reproach me as the one who took the initiative when it should

have been yourself, forgetting that it was at your request; promise that

you will never say I showed immodest readiness to do so, or anything

which may imply your obliviousness of the fact that I act in obedience to

necessity and your earnest prayer.'

Need it be said that he promised never to reproach her with that or any

other thing as long as they should live? The few details of the reversed

arrangement were soon settled, Bath being the place finally decided on.

Then, with a warm audacity which events had encouraged, he pressed her to

his breast, and she silently entered the house. He returned to the

homestead, there to attend to the unexpected duties of repairing the

havoc wrought by the gale.

* * * * *

That night, in the solitude of her chamber, Lady Constantine reopened and

read the subjoined letter--one of those handed to her by St. Cleeve:--

"--- STREET, PICCADILLY,

October 15, 18--.

'DEAR VIVIETTE,--You will be surprised to learn that I am in England,

and that I am again out of harness--unless you should have seen the

latter in the papers. Rio Janeiro may do for monkeys, but it won't do

for me. Having resigned the appointment I have returned here, as a

preliminary step to finding another vent for my energies; in other

words, another milch cow for my sustenance. I knew nothing whatever

of your husband's death till two days ago; so that any letter from you

on the subject, at the time it became known, must have miscarried.

Hypocrisy at such a moment is worse than useless, and I therefore do

not condole with you, particularly as the event, though new to a

banished man like me, occurred so long since. You are better without

him, Viviette, and are now just the limb for doing something for

yourself, notwithstanding the threadbare state in which you seem to

have been cast upon the world. You are still young, and, as I imagine

(unless you have vastly altered since I beheld you), good-looking:

therefore make up your mind to retrieve your position by a match with

one of the local celebrities; and you would do well to begin drawing

neighbouring covers at once. A genial squire, with more weight than

wit, more realty than weight, and more personalty than realty

(considering the circumstances), would be best for you. You might

make a position for us both by some such alliance; for, to tell the

truth, I have had but in-and-out luck so far. I shall be with you in

little more than a fortnight, when we will talk over the matter

seriously, if you don't object.--Your affectionate brother,