'SWITHIN ST. CLEEVE, Esq.'
An income of six hundred a year for Swithin, whom she had hitherto
understood to be possessed of an annuity of eighty pounds at the outside,
with no prospect of increasing the sum but by hard work! What could this
communication mean? He whose custom and delight it was to tell her all
his heart, had breathed not a syllable of this matter to her, though it
met the very difficulty towards which their discussions invariably
tended--how to secure for him a competency that should enable him to
establish his pursuits on a wider basis, and throw himself into more
direct communion with the scientific world. Quite bewildered by the lack
of any explanation she rose from her seat, and with the note in her hand
ascended the winding tower-steps.
Reaching the upper aperture she perceived him under the dome, moving
musingly about as if he had never been absent an hour, his light hair
frilling out from under the edge of his velvet skull-cap as it was always
wont to do. No question of marriage seemed to be disturbing the mind of
this juvenile husband of hers. The _primum mobile_ of his gravitation
was apparently the equatorial telescope which she had given him, and
which he was carefully adjusting by means of screws and clamps. Hearing
her movements he turned his head.
'O here you are, my dear Viviette! I was just beginning to expect you,'
he exclaimed, coming forward. 'I ought to have been looking out for you,
but I have found a little defect here in the instrument, and I wanted to
set it right before evening comes on. As a rule it is not a good thing
to tinker your glasses; but I have found that the diffraction-rings are
not perfect circles. I learnt at Greenwich how to correct them--so kind
they have been to me there!--and so I have been loosening the screws and
gently shifting the glass, till I think that I have at last made the
illumination equal all round. I have so much to tell you about my visit;
one thing is, that the astronomical world is getting quite excited about
the coming Transit of Venus. There is to be a regular expedition fitted
out. How I should like to join it!'
He spoke enthusiastically, and with eyes sparkling at the mental image of
the said expedition; and as it was rather gloomy in the dome he rolled it
round on its axis, till the shuttered slit for the telescope directly
faced the morning sun, which thereupon flooded the concave interior,
touching the bright metal-work of the equatorial, and lighting up her
pale, troubled face.
'But Swithin!' she faltered; 'my letter to you--our marriage!'
'O yes, this marriage question,' he added. 'I had not forgotten it, dear
Viviette--or at least only for a few minutes.'
'Can you forget it, Swithin, for a moment? O how can you!' she said
reproachfully. 'It is such a distressing thing. It drives away all my
rest!'
'Forgotten is not the word I should have used,' he apologized.
'Temporarily dismissed it from my mind, is all I meant. The simple fact
is, that the vastness of the field of astronomy reduces every terrestrial
thing to atomic dimensions. Do not trouble, dearest. The remedy is
quite easy, as I stated in my letter. We can now be married in a prosy
public way. Yes, early or late--next week, next month, six months
hence--just as you choose. Say the word when, and I will obey.'
The absence of all anxiety or consternation from his face contrasted
strangely with hers, which at last he saw, and, looking at the writing
she held, inquired--
'But what paper have you in your hand?'
'A letter which to me is actually inexplicable,' said she, her curiosity
returning to the letter, and overriding for the instant her immediate
concerns. 'What does this income of six hundred a year mean? Why have
you never told me about it, dear Swithin? or does it not refer to you?'
He looked at the note, flushed slightly, and was absolutely unable to
begin his reply at once.
'I did not mean you to see that, Viviette,' he murmured.
'Why not?'
'I thought you had better not, as it does not concern me further now. The
solicitors are labouring under a mistake in supposing that it does. I
have to write at once and inform them that the annuity is not mine to
receive.'
'What a strange mystery in your life!' she said, forcing a perplexed
smile. 'Something to balance the tragedy in mine. I am absolutely in
the dark as to your past history, it seems. And yet I had thought you
told me everything.'
'I could not tell you that, Viviette, because it would have endangered
our relations--though not in the way you may suppose. You would have
reproved me. You, who are so generous and noble, would have forbidden me
to do what I did; and I was determined not to be forbidden.'
'To do what?'
'To marry you.'
'Why should I have forbidden?'
'Must I tell--what I would not?' he said, placing his hands upon her
arms, and looking somewhat sadly at her. 'Well, perhaps as it has come
to this you ought to know all, since it can make no possible difference
to my intentions now. We are one for ever--legal blunders
notwithstanding; for happily they are quickly reparable--and this
question of a devise from my uncle Jocelyn only concerned me when I was a
single man.'
Thereupon, with obviously no consideration of the possibilities that were
reopened of the nullity of their marriage contract, he related in detail,
and not without misgiving for having concealed them so long, the events
that had occurred on the morning of their wedding-day; how he had met the
postman on his way to Warborne after dressing in the cabin, and how he
had received from him the letter his dead uncle had confided to his
family lawyers, informing him of the annuity, and of the important
request attached--that he should remain unmarried until his
five-and-twentieth year; how in comparison with the possession of her
dear self he had reckoned the income as nought, abandoned all idea of it
there and then, and had come on to the wedding as if nothing had happened
to interrupt for a moment the working out of their plan; how he had
scarcely thought with any closeness of the circumstances of the case
since, until reminded of them by this note she had seen, and a previous
one of a like sort received from the same solicitors.
'O Swithin! Swithin!' she cried, bursting into tears as she realized it
all, and sinking on the observing-chair; 'I have ruined you! yes, I have
ruined you!'
The young man was dismayed by her unexpected grief, and endeavoured to
soothe her; but she seemed touched by a poignant remorse which would not
be comforted.
'And now,' she continued, as soon as she could speak, 'when you are once
more free, and in a position--actually in a position to claim the annuity
that would be the making of you, I am compelled to come to you, and
beseech you to undo yourself again, merely to save me!'
'Not to save you, Viviette, but to bless me. You do not ask me to re-
marry; it is not a question of alternatives at all; it is my straight
course. I do not dream of doing otherwise. I should be wretched if you
thought for one moment I could entertain the idea of doing otherwise.'
But the more he said the worse he made the matter. It was a state of
affairs that would not bear discussion at all, and the unsophisticated
view he took of his course seemed to increase her responsibility.
'Why did your uncle attach such a cruel condition to his bounty?' she
cried bitterly. 'O, he little thinks how hard he hits me from the
grave--me, who have never done him wrong; and you, too! Swithin, are you
sure that he makes that condition indispensable? Perhaps he meant that
you should not marry beneath you; perhaps he did not mean to object in
such a case as your marrying (forgive me for saying it) a little above
you.'
'There is no doubt that he did not contemplate a case which has led to
such happiness as this has done,' the youth murmured with hesitation; for
though he scarcely remembered a word of his uncle's letter of advice, he
had a dim apprehension that it was couched in terms alluding specifically
to Lady Constantine.
'Are you sure you cannot retain the money, and be my lawful husband too?'
she asked piteously. 'O, what a wrong I am doing you! I did not dream
that it could be as bad as this. I knew I was wasting your time by
letting you love me, and hampering your projects; but I thought there
were compensating advantages. This wrecking of your future at my hands I
did not contemplate. You are sure there is no escape? Have you his
letter with the conditions, or the will? Let me see the letter in which
he expresses his wishes.'
'I assure you it is all as I say,' he pensively returned. 'Even if I
were not legally bound by the conditions I should be morally.'
'But how does he put it? How does he justify himself in making such a
harsh restriction? Do let me see the letter, Swithin. I shall think it
a want of confidence if you do not. I may discover some way out of the
difficulty if you let me look at the papers. Eccentric wills can be
evaded in all sorts of ways.'
Still he hesitated. 'I would rather you did not see the papers,' he
said.
But she persisted as only a fond woman can. Her conviction was that she
who, as a woman many years his senior, should have shown her love for him
by guiding him straight into the paths he aimed at, had blocked his
attempted career for her own happiness. This made her more intent than
ever to find out a device by which, while she still retained him, he
might also retain the life-interest under his uncle's will.
Her entreaties were at length too potent for his resistance. Accompanying
her downstairs to the cabin, he opened the desk from which the other
papers had been taken, and against his better judgment handed her the
ominous communication of Jocelyn St. Cleeve which lay in the envelope
just as it had been received three-quarters of a year earlier.
'Don't read it now,' he said. 'Don't spoil our meeting by entering into
a subject which is virtually past and done with. Take it with you, and
look it over at your leisure--merely as an old curiosity, remember, and
not as a still operative document. I have almost forgotten what the
contents are, beyond the general advice and stipulation that I was to
remain a bachelor.'
'At any rate,' she rejoined, 'do not reply to the note I have seen from
the solicitors till I have read this also.'
He promised. 'But now about our public wedding,' he said. 'Like certain
royal personages, we shall have had the religious rite and the civil
contract performed on independent occasions. Will you fix the day? When
is it to be? and shall it take place at a registrar's office, since there
is no necessity for having the sacred part over again?'
'I'll think,' replied she. 'I'll think it over.'
'And let me know as soon as you can how you decide to proceed.'
'I will write to-morrow, or come. I do not know what to say now. I
cannot forget how I am wronging you. This is almost more than I can
bear!'
To divert her mind he began talking about Greenwich Observatory, and the
great instruments therein, and how he had been received by the
astronomers, and the details of the expedition to observe the Transit of
Venus, together with many other subjects of the sort, to which she had
not power to lend her attention.
'I must reach home before the people are out of church,' she at length
said wearily. 'I wish nobody to know I have been out this morning.' And
forbidding Swithin to cross into the open in her company she left him on
the edge of the isolated plantation, which had latterly known her tread
so well.