XLI

Three years passed away, and Swithin still remained at the Cape, quietly

pursuing the work that had brought him there. His memoranda of

observations had accumulated to a wheelbarrow load, and he was beginning

to shape them into a treatise which should possess some scientific

utility.

He had gauged the southern skies with greater results than even he

himself had anticipated. Those unfamiliar constellations which, to the

casual beholder, are at most a new arrangement of ordinary points of

light, were to this professed astronomer, as to his brethren, a far

greater matter.

It was below the surface that his material lay. There, in regions

revealed only to the instrumental observer, were suns of hybrid kind--fire-

fogs, floating nuclei, globes that flew in groups like swarms of bees,

and other extraordinary sights--which, when decomposed by Swithin's

equatorial, turned out to be the beginning of a new series of phenomena

instead of the end of an old one.

There were gloomy deserts in those southern skies such as the north shows

scarcely an example of; sites set apart for the position of suns which

for some unfathomable reason were left uncreated, their places remaining

ever since conspicuous by their emptiness.

The inspection of these chasms brought him a second pulsation of that old

horror which he had used to describe to Viviette as produced in him by

bottomlessness in the north heaven. The ghostly finger of limitless

vacancy touched him now on the other side. Infinite deeps in the north

stellar region had a homely familiarity about them, when compared with

infinite deeps in the region of the south pole. This was an even more

unknown tract of the unknown. Space here, being less the historic haunt

of human thought than overhead at home, seemed to be pervaded with a more

lonely loneliness.

Were there given on paper to these astronomical exercitations of St.

Cleeve a space proportionable to that occupied by his year with Viviette

at Welland, this narrative would treble its length; but not a single

additional glimpse would be afforded of Swithin in his relations with old

emotions. In these experiments with tubes and glasses, important as they

were to human intellect, there was little food for the sympathetic

instincts which create the changes in a life. That which is the

foreground and measuring base of one perspective draught may be the

vanishing-point of another perspective draught, while yet they are both

draughts of the same thing. Swithin's doings and discoveries in the

southern sidereal system were, no doubt, incidents of the highest

importance to him; and yet from an intersocial point of view they served

but the humble purpose of killing time, while other doings, more nearly

allied to his heart than to his understanding, developed themselves at

home.

In the intervals between his professional occupations he took walks over

the sand-flats near, or among the farms which were gradually

overspreading the country in the vicinity of Cape Town. He grew familiar

with the outline of Table Mountain, and the fleecy 'Devil's Table-Cloth'

which used to settle on its top when the wind was south-east. On these

promenades he would more particularly think of Viviette, and of that

curious pathetic chapter in his life with her which seemed to have wound

itself up and ended for ever. Those scenes were rapidly receding into

distance, and the intensity of his sentiment regarding them had

proportionately abated. He felt that there had been something wrong

therein, and yet he could not exactly define the boundary of the wrong.

Viviette's sad and amazing sequel to that chapter had still a fearful,

catastrophic aspect in his eyes; but instead of musing over it and its

bearings he shunned the subject, as we shun by night the shady scene of a

disaster, and keep to the open road.

He sometimes contemplated her apart from the past--leading her life in

the Cathedral Close at Melchester; and wondered how often she looked

south and thought of where he was.

On one of these afternoon walks in the neighbourhood of the Royal

Observatory he turned and gazed towards the signal-post on the Lion's

Rump. This was a high promontory to the north-west of Table Mountain,

and overlooked Table Bay. Before his eyes had left the scene the signal

was suddenly hoisted on the staff. It announced that a mail steamer had

appeared in view over the sea. In the course of an hour he retraced his

steps, as he had often done on such occasions, and strolled leisurely

across the intervening mile and a half till he arrived at the post-office

door.

There was no letter from England for him; but there was a newspaper,

addressed in the seventeenth century handwriting of his grandmother, who,

in spite of her great age, still retained a steady hold on life. He

turned away disappointed, and resumed his walk into the country, opening

the paper as he went along.

A cross in black ink attracted his attention; and it was opposite a name

among the 'Deaths.' His blood ran icily as he discerned the words 'The

Palace, Melchester.' But it was not she. Her husband, the Bishop of

Melchester, had, after a short illness, departed this life at the

comparatively early age of fifty years.

All the enactments of the bygone days at Welland now started up like an

awakened army from the ground. But a few months were wanting to the time

when he would be of an age to marry without sacrificing the annuity which

formed his means of subsistence. It was a point in his life that had had

no meaning or interest for him since his separation from Viviette, for

women were now no more to him than the inhabitants of Jupiter. But the

whirligig of time having again set Viviette free, the aspect of home

altered, and conjecture as to her future found room to work anew.

But beyond the simple fact that she was a widow he for some time gained

not an atom of intelligence concerning her. There was no one of whom he

could inquire but his grandmother, and she could tell him nothing about a

lady who dwelt far away at Melchester.

Several months slipped by thus; and no feeling within him rose to

sufficient strength to force him out of a passive attitude. Then by the

merest chance his granny stated in one of her rambling epistles that Lady

Constantine was coming to live again at Welland in the old house, with

her child, now a little boy between three and four years of age.

Swithin, however, lived on as before.

But by the following autumn a change became necessary for the young man

himself. His work at the Cape was done. His uncle's wishes that he

should study there had been more than observed. The materials for his

great treatise were collected, and it now only remained for him to

arrange, digest, and publish them, for which purpose a return to England

was indispensable.

So the equatorial was unscrewed, and the stand taken down; the

astronomer's barrow-load of precious memoranda, and rolls upon rolls of

diagrams, representing three years of continuous labour, were safely

packed; and Swithin departed for good and all from the shores of Cape

Town.

He had long before informed his grandmother of the date at which she

might expect him; and in a reply from her, which reached him just

previous to sailing, she casually mentioned that she frequently saw Lady

Constantine; that on the last occasion her ladyship had shown great

interest in the information that Swithin was coming home, and had

inquired the time of his return.

* * * * *

On a late summer day Swithin stepped from the train at Warborne, and,

directing his baggage to be sent on after him, set out on foot for old

Welland once again.

It seemed but the day after his departure, so little had the scene

changed. True, there was that change which is always the first to arrest

attention in places that are conventionally called unchanging--a higher

and broader vegetation at every familiar corner than at the former time.

He had not gone a mile when he saw walking before him a clergyman whose

form, after consideration, he recognized, in spite of a novel whiteness

in that part of his hair that showed below the brim of his hat. Swithin

walked much faster than this gentleman, and soon was at his side.

'Mr. Torkingham! I knew it was,' said Swithin.

Mr. Torkingham was slower in recognizing the astronomer, but in a moment

had greeted him with a warm shake of the hand.

'I have been to the station on purpose to meet you!' cried Mr.

Torkingham, 'and was returning with the idea that you had not come. I am

your grandmother's emissary. She could not come herself, and as she was

anxious, and nobody else could be spared, I came for her.'

Then they walked on together. The parson told Swithin all about his

grandmother, the parish, and his endeavours to enlighten it; and in due

course said, 'You are no doubt aware that Lady Constantine is living

again at Welland?'

Swithin said he had heard as much, and added, what was far within the

truth, that the news of the Bishop's death had been a great surprise to

him.

'Yes,' said Mr. Torkingham, with nine thoughts to one word. 'One might

have prophesied, to look at him, that Melchester would not lack a bishop

for the next forty years. Yes; pale death knocks at the cottages of the

poor and the palaces of kings with an impartial foot!'

'Was he a particularly good man?' asked Swithin.

'He was not a Ken or a Heber. To speak candidly, he had his faults, of

which arrogance was not the least. But who is perfect?'

Swithin, somehow, felt relieved to hear that the Bishop was not a perfect

man.

'His poor wife, I fear, had not a great deal more happiness with him than

with her first husband. But one might almost have foreseen it; the

marriage was hasty--the result of a red-hot caprice, hardly becoming in a

man of his position; and it betokened a want of temperate discretion

which soon showed itself in other ways. That's all there was to be said

against him, and now it's all over, and things have settled again into

their old course. But the Bishop's widow is not the Lady Constantine of

former days. No; put it as you will, she is not the same. There seems

to be a nameless something on her mind--a trouble--a rooted melancholy,

which no man's ministry can reach. Formerly she was a woman whose

confidence it was easy to gain; but neither religion nor philosophy

avails with her now. Beyond that, her life is strangely like what it was

when you were with us.'

Conversing thus they pursued the turnpike road till their conversation

was interrupted by a crying voice on their left. They looked, and

perceived that a child, in getting over an adjoining stile, had fallen on

his face.

Mr. Torkingham and Swithin both hastened up to help the sufferer, who was

a lovely little fellow with flaxen hair, which spread out in a frill of

curls from beneath a quaint, close-fitting velvet cap that he wore.

Swithin picked him up, while Mr. Torkingham wiped the sand from his lips

and nose, and administered a few words of consolation, together with a

few sweet-meats, which, somewhat to Swithin's surprise, the parson

produced as if by magic from his pocket. One half the comfort rendered

would have sufficed to soothe such a disposition as the child's. He

ceased crying and ran away in delight to his unconscious nurse, who was

reaching up for blackberries at a hedge some way off.

'You know who he is, of course?' said Mr. Torkingham, as they resumed

their journey.

'No,' said Swithin.

'Oh, I thought you did. Yet how should you? It is Lady Constantine's

boy--her only child. His fond mother little thinks he is so far away

from home.'

'Dear me!--Lady Constantine's--ah, how interesting!' Swithin paused

abstractedly for a moment, then stepped back again to the stile, while he

stood watching the little boy out of sight.

'I can never venture out of doors now without sweets in my pocket,'

continued the good-natured vicar: 'and the result is that I meet that

young man more frequently on my rounds than any other of my

parishioners.'

St. Cleeve was silent, and they turned into Welland Lane, where their

paths presently diverged, and Swithin was left to pursue his way alone.

He might have accompanied the vicar yet further, and gone straight to

Welland House; but it would have been difficult to do so then without

provoking inquiry. It was easy to go there now: by a cross path he could

be at the mansion almost as soon as by the direct road. And yet Swithin

did not turn; he felt an indescribable reluctance to see Viviette. He

could not exactly say why. True, before he knew how the land lay it

might be awkward to attempt to call: and this was a sufficient excuse for

postponement.

In this mood he went on, following the direct way to his grandmother's

homestead. He reached the garden-gate, and, looking into the bosky basin

where the old house stood, saw a graceful female form moving before the

porch, bidding adieu to some one within the door.

He wondered what creature of that mould his grandmother could know, and

went forward with some hesitation. At his approach the apparition

turned, and he beheld, developed into blushing womanhood, one who had

once been known to him as the village maiden Tabitha Lark. Seeing

Swithin, and apparently from an instinct that her presence would not be

desirable just then, she moved quickly round into the garden.

The returned traveller entered the house, where he found awaiting him

poor old Mrs. Martin, to whose earthly course death stood rather as the

asymptote than as the end. She was perceptibly smaller in form than when

he had left her, and she could see less distinctly.

A rather affecting greeting followed, in which his grandmother murmured

the words of Israel: '"Now let me die, since I have seen thy face,

because thou art yet alive."'

The form of Hannah had disappeared from the kitchen, that ancient servant

having been gathered to her fathers about six months before, her place

being filled by a young girl who knew not Joseph. They presently chatted

with much cheerfulness, and his grandmother said, 'Have you heard what a

wonderful young woman Miss Lark has become?--a mere fleet-footed,

slittering maid when you were last home.'

St. Cleeve had not heard, but he had partly seen, and he was informed

that Tabitha had left Welland shortly after his own departure, and had

studied music with great success in London, where she had resided ever

since till quite recently; that she played at concerts, oratorios--had,

in short, joined the phalanx of Wonderful Women who had resolved to

eclipse masculine genius altogether, and humiliate the brutal sex to the

dust.

'She is only in the garden,' added his grandmother. 'Why don't ye go out

and speak to her?'

Swithin was nothing loth, and strolled out under the apple-trees, where

he arrived just in time to prevent Miss Lark from going off by the back

gate. There was not much difficulty in breaking the ice between them,

and they began to chat with vivacity.

Now all these proceedings occupied time, for somehow it was very charming

to talk to Miss Lark; and by degrees St. Cleeve informed Tabitha of his

great undertaking, and of the voluminous notes he had amassed, which

would require so much rearrangement and recopying by an amanuensis as to

absolutely appal him. He greatly feared he should not get one careful

enough for such scientific matter; whereupon Tabitha said she would be

delighted to do it for him. Then blushing, and declaring suddenly that

it had grown quite late, she left him and the garden for her relation's

house hard by.

Swithin, no less than Tabitha, had been surprised by the disappearance of

the sun behind the hill; and the question now arose whether it would be

advisable to call upon Viviette that night. There was little doubt that

she knew of his coming; but more than that he could not predicate; and

being entirely ignorant of whom she had around her, entirely in the dark

as to her present feelings towards him, he thought it would be better to

defer his visit until the next day.

Walking round to the front of the house he beheld the well-known

agriculturists Hezzy Biles, Haymoss Fry, and some others of the same old

school, passing the gate homeward from their work with bundles of wood at

their backs. Swithin saluted them over the top rail.

'Well! do my eyes and ears--' began Hezzy; and then, balancing his faggot

on end against the hedge, he came forward, the others following.

'Says I to myself as soon as I heerd his voice,' Hezzy continued

(addressing Swithin as if he were a disinterested spectator and not

himself), 'please God I'll pitch my nitch, and go across and speak to

en.'

'I knowed in a winking 'twas some great navigator that I see a standing

there,' said Haymoss. 'But whe'r 'twere a sort of nabob, or a diment-

digger, or a lion-hunter, I couldn't so much as guess till I heerd en

speak.'

'And what changes have come over Welland since I was last at home?' asked

Swithin.

'Well, Mr. San Cleeve,' Hezzy replied, 'when you've said that a few

stripling boys and maidens have busted into blooth, and a few married

women have plimmed and chimped (my lady among 'em), why, you've said

anighst all, Mr. San Cleeve.'

The conversation thus began was continued on divers matters till they

were all enveloped in total darkness, when his old acquaintances

shouldered their faggots again and proceeded on their way.

Now that he was actually within her coasts again Swithin felt a little

more strongly the influence of the past and Viviette than he had been

accustomed to do for the last two or three years. During the night he

felt half sorry that he had not marched off to the Great House to see

her, regardless of the time of day. If she really nourished for him any

particle of her old affection it had been the cruellest thing not to

call. A few questions that he put concerning her to his grandmother

elicited that Lady Constantine had no friends about her--not even her

brother--and that her health had not been so good since her return from

Melchester as formerly. Still, this proved nothing as to the state of

her heart, and as she had kept a dead silence since the Bishop's death it

was quite possible that she would meet him with that cold repressive tone

and manner which experienced women know so well how to put on when they

wish to intimate to the long-lost lover that old episodes are to be taken

as forgotten.

The next morning he prepared to call, if only on the ground of old

acquaintance, for Swithin was too straightforward to ascertain anything

indirectly. It was rather too early for this purpose when he went out

from his grandmother's garden-gate, after breakfast, and he waited in the

garden. While he lingered his eye fell on Rings-Hill Speer.

It appeared dark, for a moment, against the blue sky behind it; then the

fleeting cloud which shadowed it passed on, and the face of the column

brightened into such luminousness that the sky behind sank to the

complexion of a dark foil.

'Surely somebody is on the column,' he said to himself, after gazing at

it awhile.

Instead of going straight to the Great House he deviated through the

insulating field, now sown with turnips, which surrounded the plantation

on Rings-Hill. By the time that he plunged under the trees he was still

more certain that somebody was on the tower. He crept up to the base

with proprietary curiosity, for the spot seemed again like his own.

The path still remained much as formerly, but the nook in which the cabin

had stood was covered with undergrowth. Swithin entered the door of the

tower, ascended the staircase about half-way on tip-toe, and listened,

for he did not wish to intrude on the top if any stranger were there. The

hollow spiral, as he knew from old experience, would bring down to his

ears the slightest sound from above; and it now revealed to him the words

of a duologue in progress at the summit of the tower.

'Mother, what shall I do?' a child's voice said. 'Shall I sing?'