by Thomas Hardy
XIX
At the station Lady Constantine appeared, standing expectant; he saw herface from the window of the carriage long before she saw him. He nosooner saw her than he was satisfied to his heart's content with hisprize. If his great-uncle had offered him from the grave a kingdominstead of her, he would not have accepted it.
Swithin jumped out, and nature never painted in a woman's face moredevotion than appeared in my lady's at that moment. To both thesituation seemed like a beautiful allegory, not to be examined tooclosely, lest its defects of correspondence with real life should beapparent.
They almost feared to shake hands in public, so much depended upon theirpassing that morning without molestation. A fly was called and theydrove away.
'Take this,' she said, handing him a folded paper. 'It belongs to yourather than to me.'
At crossings, and other occasional pauses, pedestrians turned their facesand looked at the pair (for no reason but that, among so many, there werenaturally a few of the sort who have eyes to note what incidents come intheir way as they plod on); but the two in the vehicle could not but fearthat these innocent beholders had special detective designs on them.
'You look so dreadfully young!' she said with humorous fretfulness, asthey drove along (Swithin's cheeks being amazingly fresh from the morningair). 'Do try to appear a little haggard, that the parson mayn't ask usawkward questions!'
Nothing further happened, and they were set down opposite a shop aboutfifty yards from the church door, at five minutes to eleven.
'We will dismiss the fly,' she said. 'It will only attract idlers.'
On turning the corner and reaching the church they found the door ajar;but the building contained only two persons, a man and a woman,--theclerk and his wife, as they learnt. Swithin asked when the clergymanwould arrive.
The clerk looked at his watch, and said, 'At just on eleven o'clock.'
'He ought to be here,' said Swithin.
'Yes,' replied the clerk, as the hour struck. 'The fact is, sir, he is adeppity, and apt to be rather wandering in his wits as regards time andsuch like, which hev stood in the way of the man's getting a benefit. Butno doubt he'll come.'
'The regular incumbent is away, then?'
'He's gone for his bare pa'son's fortnight,--that's all; and we wasforced to put up with a weak-talented man or none. The best men goesinto the brewing, or into the shipping now-a-days, you see, sir;doctrines being rather shaddery at present, and your money's worth notsure in our line. So we church officers be left poorly provided with menfor odd jobs. I'll tell ye what, sir; I think I'd better run round tothe gentleman's lodgings, and try to find him?'
'Pray do,' said Lady Constantine.
The clerk left the church; his wife busied herself with dusting at thefurther end, and Swithin and Viviette were left to themselves. Theimagination travels so rapidly, and a woman's forethought is soassumptive, that the clerk's departure had no sooner doomed them toinaction than it was borne in upon Lady Constantine's mind that she wouldnot become the wife of Swithin St. Cleeve, either to-day or on any otherday. Her divinations were continually misleading her, she knew: but ahitch at the moment of marriage surely had a meaning in it.
'Ah,--the marriage is not to be!' she said to herself. 'This is afatality.'
It was twenty minutes past, and no parson had arrived. Swithin took herhand.
'If it cannot be to-day, it can be to-morrow,' he whispered.
'I cannot say,' she answered. 'Something tells me _no_.'
It was almost impossible that she could know anything of the deterrentforce exercised on Swithin by his dead uncle that morning. Yet hermanner tallied so curiously well with such knowledge that he was struckby it, and remained silent.
'You have a black tie,' she continued, looking at him.
'Yes,' replied Swithin. 'I bought it on my way here.'
'Why could it not have been less sombre in colour?'
'My great-uncle is dead.'
'You had a great-uncle? You never told me.'
'I never saw him in my life. I have only heard about him since hisdeath.'
He spoke in as quiet and measured a way as he could, but his heart wassinking. She would go on questioning; he could not tell her an untruth.She would discover particulars of that great-uncle's provision for him,which he, Swithin, was throwing away for her sake, and she would refuseto be his for his own sake. His conclusion at this moment was preciselywhat hers had been five minutes sooner: they were never to be husband andwife.
But she did not continue her questions, for the simplest of all reasons:hasty footsteps were audible in the entrance, and the parson was seencoming up the aisle, the clerk behind him wiping the beads ofperspiration from his face. The somewhat sorry clerical specimen shookhands with them, and entered the vestry; and the clerk came up and openedthe book.
'The poor gentleman's memory is a bit topsy-turvy,' whispered the latter.'He had got it in his mind that 'twere a funeral, and I found himwandering about the cemetery a-looking for us. However, all's well asends well.' And the clerk wiped his forehead again.
'How ill-omened!' murmured Viviette.
But the parson came out robed at this moment, and the clerk put on hisecclesiastical countenance and looked in his book. Lady Constantine'smomentary languor passed; her blood resumed its courses with a newspring. The grave utterances of the church then rolled out upon thepalpitating pair, and no couple ever joined their whispers thereto withmore fervency than they.
Lady Constantine (as she continued to be called by the outside world,though she liked to think herself the Mrs. St. Cleeve that she legallywas) had told Green that she might be expected at Welland in a day, ortwo, or three, as circumstances should dictate. Though the time ofreturn was thus left open it was deemed advisable, by both Swithin andherself, that her journey back should not be deferred after the next day,in case any suspicions might be aroused. As for St. Cleeve, his comingsand goings were of no consequence. It was seldom known whether he was athome or abroad, by reason of his frequent seclusion at the column.
Late in the afternoon of the next day he accompanied her to the Bathstation, intending himself to remain in that city till the followingmorning. But when a man or youth has such a tender article on his handsas a thirty-hour bride it is hardly in the power of his strongest reasonto set her down at a railway, and send her off like a superfluousportmanteau. Hence the experiment of parting so soon after their unionproved excruciatingly severe to these. The evening was dull; the breezeof autumn crept fitfully through every slit and aperture in the town; nota soul in the world seemed to notice or care about anything they did.Lady Constantine sighed; and there was no resisting it,--he could notleave her thus. He decided to get into the train with her, and keep hercompany for at least a few stations on her way.
It drew on to be a dark night, and, seeing that there was no serious riskafter all, he prolonged his journey with her so far as to the junction atwhich the branch line to Warborne forked off. Here it was necessary towait a few minutes, before either he could go back or she could go on.They wandered outside the station doorway into the gloom of the road, andthere agreed to part.
While she yet stood holding his arm a phaeton sped towards the station-entrance, where, in ascending the slope to the door, the horse suddenlyjibbed. The gentleman who was driving, being either impatient, orpossessed with a theory that all jibbers may be started by severewhipping, applied the lash; as a result of it, the horse thrust round thecarriage to where they stood, and the end of the driver's sweeping whipcut across Lady Constantine's face with such severity as to cause her aninvoluntary cry. Swithin turned her round to the lamplight, anddiscerned a streak of blood on her cheek.
By this time the gentleman who had done the mischief, with many words ofregret, had given the reins to his man and dismounted.
'I will go to the waiting-room for a moment,' whispered Viviettehurriedly; and, loosing her hand from his arm, she pulled down her veiland vanis
hed inside the building.
The stranger came forward and raised his hat. He was a slightly builtand apparently town-bred man of twenty-eight or thirty; his manner ofaddress was at once careless and conciliatory.
'I am greatly concerned at what I have done,' he said. 'I sincerelytrust that your wife'--but observing the youthfulness of Swithin, hewithdrew the word suggested by the manner of Swithin towards LadyConstantine--'I trust the young lady was not seriously cut?'
'I trust not,' said Swithin, with some vexation.
'Where did the lash touch her?'
'Straight down her cheek.'
'Do let me go to her, and learn how she is, and humbly apologize.'
'I'll inquire.'
He went to the ladies' room, in which Viviette had taken refuge. She methim at the door, her handkerchief to her cheek, and Swithin explainedthat the driver of the phaeton had sent to make inquiries.
'I cannot see him!' she whispered. 'He is my brother Louis! He is, nodoubt, going on by the train to my house. Don't let him recognize me! Wemust wait till he is gone.'
Swithin thereupon went out again, and told the young man that the cut onher face was not serious, but that she could not see him; after whichthey parted. St. Cleeve then heard him ask for a ticket for Warborne,which confirmed Lady Constantine's view that he was going on to herhouse. When the branch train had moved off Swithin returned to hisbride, who waited in a trembling state within.
On being informed that he had departed she showed herself much relieved.
'Where does your brother come from?' said Swithin.
'From London, immediately. Rio before that. He has a friend or two inthis neighbourhood, and visits here occasionally. I have seldom or neverspoken to you of him, because of his long absence.'
'Is he going to settle near you?'
'No, nor anywhere, I fear. He is, or rather was, in the diplomaticservice. He was first a clerk in the Foreign Office, and was afterwardsappointed attache at Rio Janeiro. But he has resigned the appointment. Iwish he had not.'
Swithin asked why he resigned.
'He complained of the banishment, and the climate, and everything thatpeople complain of who are determined to be dissatisfied,--though, poorfellow, there is some ground for his complaints. Perhaps some peoplewould say that he is idle. But he is scarcely that; he is ratherrestless than idle, so that he never persists in anything. Yet if asubject takes his fancy he will follow it up with exemplary patience tillsomething diverts him.'
'He is not kind to you, is he, dearest?'
'Why do you think that?'
'Your manner seems to say so.'
'Well, he may not always be kind. But look at my face; does the markshow?'
A streak, straight as a meridian, was visible down her cheek. The bloodhad been brought almost to the surface, but was not quite through, thatwhich had originally appeared thereon having possibly come from thehorse. It signified that to-morrow the red line would be a black one.
Swithin informed her that her brother had taken a ticket for Warborne,and she at once perceived that he was going on to visit her at Welland,though from his letter she had not expected him so soon by a few days.'Meanwhile,' continued Swithin, 'you can now get home only by the latetrain, having missed that one.'
'But, Swithin, don't you see my new trouble? If I go to Welland House to-night, and find my brother just arrived there, and he sees this cut on myface, which I suppose you described to him--'
'I did.'
'He will know I was the lady with you!'
'Whom he called my wife. I wonder why we look husband and wife already!'
'Then what am I to do? For the ensuing three or four days I bear in myface a clue to his discovery of our secret.'
'Then you must not be seen. We must stay at an inn here.'
'O no!' she said timidly. 'It is too near home to be quite safe. Wemight not be known; but _if_ we were!'
'We can't go back to Bath now. I'll tell you, dear Viviette, what wemust do. We'll go on to Warborne in separate carriages; we'll meetoutside the station thence we'll walk to the column in the dark, andI'll keep you a captive in the cabin till the scar has disappeared.'
As there was nothing which better recommended itself this course wasdecided on and after taking from her trunk the articles that might berequired for an incarceration of two or three days they left the saidtrunk at the cloak-room, and went on by the last train, which reachedWarborne about ten o'clock.
It was only necessary for Lady Constantine to cover her face with thethick veil that she had provided for this escapade, to walk out of thestation without fear of recognition. St. Cleeve came forth from anothercompartment, and they did not rejoin each other till they had reached ashadowy bend in the old turnpike road, beyond the irradiation of theWarborne lamplight.
The walk to Welland was long. It was the walk which Swithin had taken inthe rain when he had learnt the fatal forestalment of his stellardiscovery; but now he was moved by a less desperate mood, and blamedneither God nor man. They were not pressed for time, and passed alongthe silent, lonely way with that sense rather of predestination than ofchoice in their proceedings which the presence of night sometimesimparts. Reaching the park gate, they found it open, and from this theyinferred that her brother Louis had arrived.
Leaving the house and park on their right they traced the highway yet alittle further, and, plunging through the stubble of the opposite field,drew near the isolated earthwork bearing the plantation and tower, whichtogether rose like a flattened dome and lantern from the lighter-huedplain of stubble. It was far too dark to distinguish firs from othertrees by the eye alone, but the peculiar dialect of sylvan language whichthe piny multitude used would have been enough to proclaim their class atany time. In the lovers' stealthy progress up the slopes a dry stickhere and there snapped beneath their feet, seeming like a shot of alarm.
On being unlocked the hut was found precisely as Swithin had left it twodays before. Lady Constantine was thoroughly wearied, and sat down,while he gathered a handful of twigs and spikelets from the masses strewnwithout and lit a small fire, first taking the precaution to blind thelittle window and relock the door.
Lady Constantine looked curiously around by the light of the blaze. Thehut was small as the prophet's chamber provided by the Shunammite: in onecorner stood the stove, with a little table and chair, a small cupboardhard by, a pitcher of water, a rack overhead, with various articles,including a kettle and a gridiron while the remaining three or four feetat the other end of the room was fitted out as a dormitory, for Swithin'suse during late observations in the tower overhead.
'It is not much of a palace to offer you,' he remarked, smiling. 'But atany rate, it is a refuge.'
The cheerful firelight dispersed in some measure Lady Constantine'sanxieties. 'If we only had something to eat!' she said.
'Dear me,' cried St. Cleeve, blankly. 'That's a thing I never thoughtof.'
'Nor I, till now,' she replied.
He reflected with misgiving.
'Beyond a small loaf of bread in the cupboard I have nothing. However,just outside the door there are lots of those little rabbits, about thesize of rats, that the keepers call runners. And they are as tame aspossible. But I fear I could not catch one now. Yet, dear Viviette,wait a minute; I'll try. You must not be starved.'
He softly let himself out, and was gone some time. When he reappeared,he produced, not a rabbit, but four sparrows and a thrush.
'I could do nothing in the way of a rabbit without setting a wire,' hesaid. 'But I have managed to get these by knowing where they roost.'
He showed her how to prepare the birds, and, having set her to roast themby the fire, departed with the pitcher, to replenish it at the brookwhich flowed near the homestead in the neighbouring Bottom.
'They are all asleep at my grandmother's,' he informed her when he re-entered, panting, with the dripping pitcher. 'They imagine me to be ahundred miles off.'
; The birds were now ready, and the table was spread. With this fare, ekedout by dry toast from the loaf, and moistened with cups of water from thepitcher, to which Swithin added a little wine from the flask he hadcarried on his journey, they were forced to be content for their supper.