by Thomas Hardy
XIV
The laboured resistance which Lady Constantine's judgment had offered toher rebellious affection ere she learnt that she was a widow, now passedinto a bashfulness that rendered her almost as unstable of mood asbefore. But she was one of that mettle--fervid, cordial, andspontaneous--who had not the heart to spoil a passion and her affairshaving gone to rack and ruin by no fault of her own she was left to apainfully narrowed existence which lent even something of rationality toher attachment. Thus it was that her tender and unambitious soul foundcomfort in her reverses.
As for St. Cleeve, the tardiness of his awakening was the natural resultof inexperience combined with devotion to a hobby. But, like a springbud hard in bursting, the delay was compensated by after speed. At oncebreathlessly recognizing in this fellow-watcher of the skies a woman wholoved him, in addition to the patroness and friend, he truly translatedthe nearly forgotten kiss she had given him in her moment of despair.
Lady Constantine, in being eight or nine years his senior, was an objecteven better calculated to nourish a youth's first passion than a girl ofhis own age, superiority of experience and ripeness of emotion exercisingthe same peculiar fascination over him as over other young men in theirfirst ventures in this kind.
The alchemy which thus transmuted an abstracted astronomer into an eagerlover--and, must it be said, spoilt a promising young physicist toproduce a common-place inamorato--may be almost described as working itschange in one short night. Next morning he was so fascinated with thenovel sensation that he wanted to rush off at once to Lady Constantine,and say, 'I love you true!' in the intensest tones of his mentalcondition, to register his assertion in her heart before any of thoseaccidents which 'creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,'should occur to hinder him. But his embarrassment at standing in a newposition towards her would not allow him to present himself at her doorin any such hurry. He waited on, as helplessly as a girl, for a chanceof encountering her.
But though she had tacitly agreed to see him on any reasonable occasion,Lady Constantine did not put herself in his way. She even kept herselfout of his way. Now that for the first time he had learnt to feel astrong impatience for their meeting, her shyness for the first time ledher to delay it. But given two people living in one parish, who longfrom the depths of their hearts to be in each other's company, whatresolves of modesty, policy, pride, or apprehension will keep them forany length of time apart?
One afternoon he was watching the sun from his tower, half echoing theGreek astronomer's wish that he might be set close to that luminary forthe wonder of beholding it in all its glory, under the slight penalty ofbeing consumed the next instant. He glanced over the high-road betweenthe field and the park (which sublunary features now too often distractedhis attention from his telescope), and saw her passing along that way.
She was seated in the donkey-carriage that had now taken the place of herlandau, the white animal looking no larger than a cat at that distance.The buttoned boy, who represented both coachman and footman, walkedalongside the animal's head at a solemn pace; the dog stalked at thedistance of a yard behind the vehicle, without indulging in a singlegambol; and the whole turn-out resembled in dignity a dwarfed stateprocession.
Here was an opportunity but for two obstructions: the boy, who might becurious; and the dog, who might bark and attract the attention of anylabourers or servants near. Yet the risk was to be run, and, knowingthat she would soon turn up a certain shady lane at right angles to theroad she had followed, he ran hastily down the staircase, crossed thebarley (which now covered the field) by the path not more than a footwide that he had trodden for himself, and got into the lane at the otherend. By slowly walking along in the direction of the turnpike-road hesoon had the satisfaction of seeing her coming. To his surprise he alsohad the satisfaction of perceiving that neither boy nor dog was in hercompany.
They both blushed as they approached, she from sex, he from inexperience.One thing she seemed to see in a moment, that in the interval of herabsence St. Cleeve had become a man; and as he greeted her with this newand maturer light in his eyes she could not hide her embarrassment, ormeet their fire.
'I have just sent my page across to the column with your book on CometaryNuclei,' she said softly; 'that you might not have to come to the housefor it. I did not know I should meet you here.'
'Didn't you wish me to come to the house for it?'
'I did not, frankly. You know why, do you not?'
'Yes, I know. Well, my longing is at rest. I have met you again. Butare you unwell, that you drive out in this chair?'
'No; I walked out this morning, and am a little tired.'
'I have been looking for you night and day. Why do you turn your faceaside? You used not to be so.' Her hand rested on the side of thechair, and he took it. 'Do you know that since we last met, I have beenthinking of you--daring to think of you--as I never thought of youbefore?'
'Yes, I know it.'
'How did you know?'
'I saw it in your face when you came up.'
'Well, I suppose I ought not to think of you so. And yet, had I notlearned to, I should never fully have felt how gentle and sweet you are.Only think of my loss if I had lived and died without seeing more in youthan in astronomy! But I shall never leave off doing so now. When youtalk I shall love your understanding; when you are silent I shall loveyour face. But how shall I know that you care to be so much to me?'
Her manner was disturbed as she recognized the impending self-surrender,which she knew not how to resist, and was not altogether at ease inwelcoming.
'O, Lady Constantine,' he continued, bending over her, 'give me someproof more than mere seeming and inference, which are all I have atpresent, that you don't think this I tell you of presumption in me! Ihave been unable to do anything since I last saw you for ponderinguncertainly on this. Some proof, or little sign, that we are one inheart!'
A blush settled again on her face; and half in effort, half inspontaneity, she put her finger on her cheek. He almost devotionallykissed the spot.
'Does that suffice?' she asked, scarcely giving her words voice.
'Yes; I am convinced.'
'Then that must be the end. Let me drive on the boy will be back againsoon.' She spoke hastily, and looked askance to hide the heat of hercheek.
'No; the tower door is open, and he will go to the top, and waste histime in looking through the telescope.'
'Then you should rush back, for he will do some damage.'
'No; he may do what he likes, tinker and spoil the instrument, destroy mypapers,--anything, so that he will stay there and leave us alone.'
She glanced up with a species of pained pleasure.
'You never used to feel like that!' she said, and there was keen self-reproach in her voice. 'You were once so devoted to your science thatthe thought of an intruder into your temple would have driven you wild.Now you don't care; and who is to blame? Ah, not you, not you!'
The animal ambled on with her, and he, leaning on the side of the littlevehicle, kept her company.
'Well, don't let us think of that,' he said. 'I offer myself and all myenergies, frankly and entirely, to you, my dear, dear lady, whose I shallbe always! But my words in telling you this will only injure my meaninginstead of emphasize it. In expressing, even to myself, my thoughts ofyou, I find that I fall into phrases which, as a critic, I shouldhitherto have heartily despised for their commonness. What's the use ofsaying, for instance, as I have just said, that I give myself entirely toyou, and shall be yours always,--that you have my devotion, my highesthomage? Those words have been used so frequently in a flippant mannerthat honest use of them is not distinguishable from the unreal.' Heturned to her, and added, smiling, 'Your eyes are to be my stars for thefuture.'
'Yes, I know it,--I know it, and all you would say! I dreaded even whileI hoped for this, my dear young friend,' she replied, her eyes being fullof tears. 'I am injuring you; who knows that I am not ruining
yourfuture,--I who ought to know better? Nothing can come of this, nothingmust,--and I am only wasting your time. Why have I drawn you off from agrand celestial study to study poor lonely me? Say you will neverdespise me, when you get older, for this episode in our lives. But youwill,--I know you will! All men do, when they have been attracted intheir unsuspecting youth, as I have attracted you. I ought to have keptmy resolve.'
'What was that?'
'To bear anything rather than draw you from your high purpose; to be likethe noble citizen of old Greece, who, attending a sacrifice, let himselfbe burnt to the bone by a coal that jumped into his sleeve rather thandisturb the sacred ceremony.'
'But can I not study and love both?'
'I hope so,--I earnestly hope so. But you'll be the first if you do, andI am the responsible one if you do not.'
'You speak as if I were quite a child, and you immensely older. Why, howold do you think I am? I am twenty.'
'You seem younger. Well, that's so much the better. Twenty soundsstrong and firm. How old do you think I am?'
'I have never thought of considering.' He innocently turned toscrutinize her face. She winced a little. But the instinct waspremature. Time had taken no liberties with her features as yet; nor hadtrouble very roughly handled her.
'I will tell you,' she replied, speaking almost with physical pain, yetas if determination should carry her through. 'I ameight-and-twenty--nearly--I mean a little more, a few months more. Am Inot a fearful deal older than you?'
'At first it seems a great deal,' he answered, musing. 'But it doesn'tseem much when one gets used to it.'
'Nonsense!' she exclaimed. 'It _is_ a good deal.'
'Very well, then, sweetest Lady Constantine, let it be,' he said gently.
'You should not let it be! A polite man would have flatly contradictedme. . . . O I am ashamed of this!' she added a moment after, with asubdued, sad look upon the ground. 'I am speaking by the card of theouter world, which I have left behind utterly; no such lip service isknown in your sphere. I care nothing for those things, really; but thatwhich is called the Eve in us will out sometimes. Well, we will forgetthat now, as we must, at no very distant date, forget all the rest ofthis.'
He walked beside her thoughtfully awhile, with his eyes also bent on theroad. 'Why must we forget it all?' he inquired.
'It is only an interlude.'
'An interlude! It is no interlude to me. O how can you talk so lightlyof this, Lady Constantine? And yet, if I were to go away from here, Imight, perhaps, soon reduce it to an interlude! Yes,' he resumedimpulsively, 'I will go away. Love dies, and it is just as well tostrangle it in its birth; it can only die once! I'll go.'
'No, no!' she said, looking up apprehensively. 'I misled you. It is nointerlude to me,--it is tragical. I only meant that from a worldly pointof view it is an interlude, which we should try to forget. But the worldis not all. You will not go away?'
But he continued drearily, 'Yes, yes, I see it all; you have enlightenedme. It will be hurting your prospects even more than mine, if I stay.Now Sir Blount is dead, you are free again,--may marry where you will,but for this fancy of ours. I'll leave Welland before harm comes of mystaying.'
'Don't decide to do a thing so rash!' she begged, seizing his hand, andlooking miserable at the effect of her words. 'I shall have nobody leftin the world to care for! And now I have given you the great telescope,and lent you the column, it would be ungrateful to go away! I was wrong;believe me that I did not mean that it was a mere interlude to _me_. Oif you only knew how very, very far it is from that! It is my doubt ofthe result to you that makes me speak so slightingly.'
They were now approaching cross-roads, and casually looking up theybeheld, thirty or forty yards beyond the crossing, Mr. Torkingham, whowas leaning over a gate, his back being towards them. As yet he had notrecognized their approach.
The master-passion had already supplanted St. Cleeve's naturalingenuousness by subtlety.
'Would it be well for us to meet Mr. Torkingham just now?' he began.
'Certainly not,' she said hastily, and pulling the rein she instantlydrove down the right-hand road. 'I cannot meet anybody!' she murmured.'Would it not be better that you leave me now?--not for my pleasure, butthat there may arise no distressing tales about us before we know--how toact in this--this'--(she smiled faintly at him) 'heartaching extremity!'
They were passing under a huge oak-tree, whose limbs, irregular withshoulders, knuckles, and elbows, stretched horizontally over the lane ina manner recalling Absalom's death. A slight rustling was perceptibleamid the leafage as they drew out from beneath it, and turning up hiseyes Swithin saw that very buttoned page whose advent they had dreaded,looking down with interest at them from a perch not much higher than ayard above their heads. He had a bunch of oak-apples in one hand,plainly the object of his climb, and was furtively watching LadyConstantine with the hope that she might not see him. But that she hadalready done, though she did not reveal it, and, fearing that the latterwords of their conversation had been overheard, they spoke not till theyhad passed the next turning.
She stretched out her hand to his. 'This must not go on,' she saidimploringly. 'My anxiety as to what may be said of such methods ofmeeting makes me too unhappy. See what has happened!' She could nothelp smiling. 'Out of the frying-pan into the fire! After meanlyturning to avoid the parson we have rushed into a worse publicity. It istoo humiliating to have to avoid people, and lowers both you and me. Theonly remedy is not to meet.'
'Very well,' said Swithin, with a sigh. 'So it shall be.'
And with smiles that might more truly have been tears they parted thereand then.