Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (409 page)

‘And to add a new weirdness to what the sky possesses in its size and formlessness, there is involved the quality of decay.  For all the wonder of these everlasting stars, eternal spheres, and what not, they are not everlasting, they are not eternal; they burn out like candles.  You see that dying one in the body of the Greater Bear?  Two centuries ago it was as bright as the others.  The senses may become terrified by plunging among them as they are, but there is a pitifulness even in their glory.  Imagine them all extinguished, and your mind feeling its way through a heaven of total darkness, occasionally striking against the black, invisible cinders of those stars. . . .  If you are cheerful, and wish to remain so, leave the study of astronomy alone.  Of all the sciences, it alone deserves the character of the terrible.’

‘I am not altogether cheerful.’

‘Then if, on the other hand, you are restless and anxious about the future, study astronomy at once.  Your troubles will be reduced amazingly.  But your study will reduce them in a singular way, by reducing the importance of everything.  So that the science is still terrible, even as a panacea.  It is quite impossible to think at all adequately of the sky — of what the sky substantially is, without feeling it as a juxtaposed nightmare.  It is better — far better — for men to forget the universe than to bear it clearly in mind! . . .  But you say the universe was not really what you came to see me about.  What was it, may I ask, Lady Constantine?’

She mused, and sighed, and turned to him with something pathetic in her.

‘The immensity of the subject you have engaged me on has completely crushed my subject out of me!  Yours is celestial; mine lamentably human!  And the less must give way to the greater.’

‘But is it, in a human sense, and apart from macrocosmic magnitudes, important?’ he inquired, at last attracted by her manner; for he began to perceive, in spite of his prepossession, that she had really something on her mind.

‘It is as important as personal troubles usually are.’

Notwithstanding her preconceived notion of coming to Swithin as employer to dependant, as
châtelaine
to page, she was falling into confidential intercourse with him.  His vast and romantic endeavours lent him a personal force and charm which she could not but apprehend.  In the presence of the immensities that his young mind had, as it were, brought down from above to hers, they became unconsciously equal.  There was, moreover, an inborn liking in Lady Constantine to dwell less on her permanent position as a county lady than on her passing emotions as a woman.

‘I will postpone the matter I came to charge you with,’ she resumed, smiling.  ‘I must reconsider it.  Now I will return.’

‘Allow me to show you out through the trees and across the fields?’

She said neither a distinct yes nor no; and, descending the tower, they threaded the firs and crossed the ploughed field.  By an odd coincidence he remarked, when they drew near the Great House —

‘You may possibly be interested in knowing, Lady Constantine, that that medium-sized star you see over there, low down in the south, is precisely over Sir Blount Constantine’s head in the middle of Africa.’

‘How very strange that you should have said so!’ she answered.  ‘You have broached for me the very subject I had come to speak of.’

‘On a domestic matter?’ he said, with surprise.

‘Yes.  What a small matter it seems now, after our astronomical stupendousness! and yet on my way to you it so far transcended the ordinary matters of my life as the subject you have led me up to transcends this.  But,’ with a little laugh, ‘I will endeavour to sink down to such ephemeral trivialities as human tragedy, and explain, since I have come.  The point is, I want a helper: no woman ever wanted one more.  For days I have wanted a trusty friend who could go on a secret errand for me.  It is necessary that my messenger should be educated, should be intelligent, should be silent as the grave.  Do you give me your solemn promise as to the last point, if I confide in you?’

‘Most emphatically, Lady Constantine.’

‘Your right hand upon the compact.’

He gave his hand, and raised hers to his lips.  In addition to his respect for her as the lady of the manor, there was the admiration of twenty years for twenty-eight or nine in such relations.

‘I trust you,’ she said.  ‘Now, beyond the above conditions, it was specially necessary that my agent should have known Sir Blount Constantine well by sight when he was at home.  For the errand is concerning my husband; I am much disturbed at what I have heard about him.’

‘I am indeed sorry to know it.’

‘There are only two people in the parish who fulfil all the conditions, — Mr. Torkingham, and yourself.  I sent for Mr. Torkingham, and he came.  I could not tell him.  I felt at the last moment that he wouldn’t do.  I have come to you because I think you will do.  This is it: my husband has led me and all the world to believe that he is in Africa, hunting lions.  I have had a mysterious letter informing me that he has been seen in London, in very peculiar circumstances.  The truth of this I want ascertained.  Will you go on the journey?’

‘Personally, I would go to the end of the world for you, Lady Constantine; but — ’

‘No buts!’

‘How can I leave?’

‘Why not?’

‘I am preparing a work on variable stars.  There is one of these which I have exceptionally observed for several months, and on this my great theory is mainly based.  It has been hitherto called irregular; but I have detected a periodicity in its so-called irregularities which, if proved, would add some very valuable facts to those known on this subject, one of the most interesting, perplexing, and suggestive in the whole field of astronomy.  Now, to clinch my theory, there should be a sudden variation this week, — or at latest next week, — and I have to watch every night not to let it pass.  You see my reason for declining, Lady Constantine.’

‘Young men are always so selfish!’ she said.

‘It might ruin the whole of my year’s labour if I leave now!’ returned the youth, greatly hurt.  ‘Could you not wait a fortnight longer?’

‘No, — no.  Don’t think that I have asked you, pray.  I have no wish to inconvenience you.’

‘Lady Constantine, don’t be angry with me!  Will you do this, — watch the star for me while I am gone?  If you are prepared to do it effectually, I will go.’

‘Will it be much trouble?’

‘It will be some trouble.  You would have to come here every clear evening about nine.  If the sky were not clear, then you would have to come at four in the morning, should the clouds have dispersed.’

‘Could not the telescope be brought to my house?’

Swithin shook his head.

‘Perhaps you did not observe its real size, — that it was fixed to a frame-work?  I could not afford to buy an equatorial, and I have been obliged to rig up an apparatus of my own devising, so as to make it in some measure answer the purpose of an equatorial.  It
could
be moved, but I would rather not touch it.’

‘Well, I’ll go to the telescope,’ she went on, with an emphasis that was not wholly playful.  ‘You are the most ungallant youth I ever met with; but I suppose I must set that down to science.  Yes, I’ll go to the tower at nine every night.’

‘And alone?  I should prefer to keep my pursuits there unknown.’

‘And alone,’ she answered, quite overborne by his inflexibility.

‘You will not miss the morning observation, if it should be necessary?’

‘I have given my word.’

‘And I give mine.  I suppose I ought not to have been so exacting!’  He spoke with that sudden emotional sense of his own insignificance which made these alternations of mood possible.  ‘I will go anywhere — do anything for you — this moment — to-morrow or at any time.  But you must return with me to the tower, and let me show you the observing process.’

They retraced their steps, the tender hoar-frost taking the imprint of their feet, while two stars in the Twins looked down upon their two persons through the trees, as if those two persons could bear some sort of comparison with them.  On the tower the instructions were given.  When all was over, and he was again conducting her to the Great House she said —

‘When can you start?’

‘Now,’ said Swithin.

‘So much the better.  You shall go up by the night mail.’

CHAPTER V

On the third morning after the young man’s departure Lady Constantine opened the post-bag anxiously.  Though she had risen before four o’clock, and crossed to the tower through the gray half-light when every blade and twig were furred with rime, she felt no languor.  Expectation could banish at cock-crow the eye-heaviness which apathy had been unable to disperse all the day long.

There was, as she had hoped, a letter from Swithin St. Cleeve.

‘Dear Lady Constantine, — I have quite succeeded in my mission, and shall return to-morrow at 10 p.m.  I hope you have not failed in the observations.  Watching the star through an opera-glass Sunday night, I fancied some change had taken place, but I could not make myself sure.  Your memoranda for that night I await with impatience.  Please don’t neglect to write down
at the moment
, all remarkable appearances both as to colour and intensity; and be very exact as to time, which correct in the way I showed you. — I am, dear Lady Constantine, yours most faithfully,

Swithin St. Cleeve.’

Not another word in the letter about his errand; his mind ran on nothing but this astronomical subject.  He had succeeded in his mission, and yet he did not even say yes or no to the great question, — whether or not her husband was masquerading in London at the address she had given.

‘Was ever anything so provoking!’ she cried.

However, the time was not long to wait.  His way homeward would lie within a stone’s-throw of the manor-house, and though for certain reasons she had forbidden him to call at the late hour of his arrival, she could easily intercept him in the avenue.  At twenty minutes past ten she went out into the drive, and stood in the dark.  Seven minutes later she heard his footstep, and saw his outline in the slit of light between the avenue-trees.  He had a valise in one hand, a great-coat on his arm, and under his arm a parcel which seemed to be very precious, from the manner in which he held it.

‘Lady Constantine?’ he asked softly.

‘Yes,’ she said, in her excitement holding out both her hands, though he had plainly not expected her to offer one.

‘Did you watch the star?’

‘I’ll tell you everything in detail; but, pray, your errand first!’

‘Yes, it’s all right.  Did you watch every night, not missing one?’

‘I forgot to go — twice,’ she murmured contritely.

‘Oh, Lady Constantine!’ he cried in dismay.  ‘How could you serve me so! what shall I do?’

‘Please forgive me!  Indeed, I could not help it.  I had watched and watched, and nothing happened; and somehow my vigilance relaxed when I found nothing was likely to take place in the star.’

‘But the very circumstance of it not having happened, made it all the more likely every day.’

‘Have you — seen — ’ she began imploringly.

Swithin sighed, lowered his thoughts to sublunary things, and told briefly the story of his journey.  Sir Blount Constantine was not in London at the address which had been anonymously sent her.  It was a mistake of identity.  The person who had been seen there Swithin had sought out.  He resembled Sir Blount strongly; but he was a stranger.

‘How can I reward you!’ she exclaimed, when he had done.

‘In no way but by giving me your good wishes in what I am going to tell you on my own account.’  He spoke in tones of mysterious exultation.  ‘This parcel is going to make my fame!’

‘What is it?’

‘A huge object-glass for the great telescope I am so busy about!  Such a magnificent aid to science has never entered this county before, you may depend.’

He produced from under his arm the carefully cuddled-up package, which was in shape a round flat disk, like a dinner-plate, tied in paper.

Proceeding to explain his plans to her more fully, he walked with her towards the door by which she had emerged.  It was a little side wicket through a wall dividing the open park from the garden terraces.  Here for a moment he placed his valise and parcel on the coping of the stone balustrade, till he had bidden her farewell.  Then he turned, and in laying hold of his bag by the dim light pushed the parcel over the parapet.  It fell smash upon the paved walk ten or a dozen feet beneath.

‘Oh, good heavens!’ he cried in anguish.

‘What?’

‘My object-glass broken!’

‘Is it of much value?’

‘It cost all I possess!’

He ran round by the steps to the lower lawn, Lady Constantine following, as he continued, ‘It is a magnificent eight-inch first quality object lens!  I took advantage of my journey to London to get it!  I have been six weeks making the tube of milled board; and as I had not enough money by twelve pounds for the lens, I borrowed it of my grandmother out of her last annuity payment.  What can be, can be done!’

‘Perhaps it is not broken.’

He felt on the ground, found the parcel, and shook it.  A clicking noise issued from inside.  Swithin smote his forehead with his hand, and walked up and down like a mad fellow.

‘My telescope!  I have waited nine months for this lens.  Now the possibility of setting up a really powerful instrument is over!  It is too cruel — how could it happen! . . .  Lady Constantine, I am ashamed of myself, — before you.  Oh, but, Lady Constantine, if you only knew what it is to a person engaged in science to have the means of clinching a theory snatched away at the last moment!  It is I against the world; and when the world has accidents on its side in addition to its natural strength, what chance for me!’

The young astronomer leant against the wall, and was silent.  His misery was of an intensity and kind with that of Palissy, in these struggles with an adverse fate.

‘Don’t mind it, — pray don’t!’ said Lady Constantine.  ‘It is dreadfully unfortunate!  You have my whole sympathy.  Can it be mended?’