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?’
The mother seemed to assent, for the child began —
‘The robin has fled from the wood
To the snug habitation of man.’
This performance apparently attracted but little attention from the child’s companion, for the young voice suggested, as a new form of entertainment, ‘Shall I say my prayers?’
‘Yes,’ replied one whom Swithin had begun to recognize.
‘Who shall I pray for?’
No answer.
‘Who shall I pray for?’
‘Pray for father.’
‘But he is gone to heaven?’
A sigh from Viviette was distinctly audible.
‘You made a mistake, didn’t you, mother?’ continued the little one.
‘I must have. The strangest mistake a woman ever made!’
Nothing more was said, and Swithin ascended, words from above indicating to him that his footsteps were heard. In another half-minute he rose through the hatchway. A lady in black was sitting in the sun, and the boy with the flaxen hair whom he had seen yesterday was at her feet.
‘Viviette!’ he said.
‘Swithin! – at last!’ she cried.
The words died upon her lips, and from very faintness she bent her head. For instead of rushing forward to her he had stood still; and there appeared upon his face a look which there was no mistaking.
Yes; he was shocked at her worn and faded aspect. The image he had mentally carried out with him to the Cape he had brought home again as that of the woman he was now to rejoin. But another woman sat before him, and not the original Viviette. Her cheeks had lost for ever that firm contour which had been drawn by the vigorous hand of youth, and the masses of hair that were once darkness visible had become touched here and there by a faint grey haze, like the Via Lactea in a midnight sky.
Yet to those who had eyes to understand as well as to see, the chastened pensiveness of her once handsome features revealed more promising material beneath than ever her youth had done. But Swithin was hopelessly her junior. Unhappily for her he had now just arrived at an age whose canon of faith it is that the silly period of woman’s life is her only period of beauty. Viviette saw it all, and knew that Time had at last brought about his revenges. She had tremblingly watched and waited without sleep, ever since Swithin had re-entered Welland, and it was for this.
Swithin came forward, and took her by the hand, which she passively allowed him to do.
‘Swithin, you don’t love me,’ she said simply.
‘O Viviette!’
‘You don’t love me,’ she repeated.
‘Don’t say it!’
‘Yes, but I will! you have a right not to love me. You did once. But now I am an old woman, and you are still a young man; so how can you love me? I do not expect it. It is kind and charitable of you to come and see me here.’
‘I have come all the way from the Cape,’ he faltered, for her insistence took all power out of him to deny in mere politeness what she said.
‘Yes; you have come from the Cape; but not for me,’ she answered. ‘It would be absurd if you had come for me. You have come because your work there is finished… I like to sit here with my little boy – it is a pleasant spot. It was once something to us, was it not? but that was long ago. You scarcely knew me for the same woman, did you?’
‘Knew you – yes, of course I knew you!’
‘You looked as if you did not. But you must not be surprised at me. I belong to an earlier generation than you, remember.’
Thus, in sheer bitterness of spirit did she inflict wounds on herself by exaggerating the difference in their years. But she had nevertheless spoken truly. Sympathize with her as he might, and as he unquestionably did, he loved her no longer. But why had she expected otherwise? ‘O woman,’ might a prophet have said to her, ‘great is thy faith if thou believest a junior lover’s love will last five years!’
‘I shall be glad to know through your grandmother how you are getting on,’ she said meekly. ‘But now I would much rather that we part. Yes; do not question me. I would rather that we part. Good-bye.’
Hardly knowing what he did he touched her hand, and obeyed. He was a scientist, and took words literally. There is something in the inexorably simple logic of such men which partakes of the cruelty of the natural laws that are their study. He entered the tower-steps, and mechanically descended; and it was not till he got half-way down that he thought she could not mean what she had said.
Before leaving Cape Town he had made up his mind on this one point; that if she were willing to marry him, marry her he would without let or hindrance. That much he morally owed her, and was not the man to demur. And though the Swithin who had returned was not quite the Swithin who had gone away, though he could not now love her with the sort of love he had once bestowed; he believed that all her conduct had been dictated by the purest benevolence to him, by that charity which ‘seeketh not her own.’ Hence he did not flinch from a wish to deal with loving-kindness towards her – a sentiment perhaps in the long-run more to be prized than lover’s love.
Her manner had caught him unawares; but now recovering himself he turned back determinedly. Bursting out upon the roof he clasped her in his arms, and kissed her several times.
‘Viviette, Viviette,’ he said, ‘I have come to marry you!’
She uttered a shriek – a shriek of amazed joy – such as never was heard on that tower before or since – and fell in his arms, clasping his neck.
There she lay heavily. Not to disturb her he sat down in her seat, still holding her fast. Their little son, who had stood with round conjectural eyes throughout the meeting, now came close; and presently looking up to Swithin said —
‘Mother has gone to sleep.’
Swithin looked down, and started. Her tight clasp had loosened. A wave of whiteness, like that of marble which had never seen the sun, crept up from her neck, and travelled upwards and onwards over her cheek, lips, eyelids, forehead, temples, its margin banishing back the live pink till the latter had entirely disappeared.
Seeing that something was wrong, yet not understanding what, the little boy began to cry; but in his concentration Swithin hardly heard it. ‘Viviette – Viviette!’ he said.
The child cried with still deeper grief, and, after a momentary hesitation, pushed his hand into Swithin’s for protection.
‘Hush, hush! my child,’ said Swithin distractedly. ‘I’ll take care of you! O Viviette!’ he exclaimed again, pressing her face to his.
But she did not reply.
‘What can this be?’ he asked himself. He would not then answer according to his fear.
He looked up for help. Nobody appeared in sight but Tabitha Lark, who was skirting the field with a bounding tread – the single bright spot of colour and animation within the wide horizon. When he looked down again his fear deepened to certainty. It was no longer a mere surmise that help was vain. Sudden joy after despair had touched an over-strained heart too smartly. Viviette was dead. The Bishop was avenged.