Two on a Tower

by Thomas Hardy

  XXIV

  The morning of the confirmation was come. It was mid-May time, bringingwith it weather not, perhaps, quite so blooming as that assumed to benatural to the month by the joyous poets of three hundred years ago; buta very tolerable, well-wearing May, that the average rustic wouldwillingly have compounded for in lieu of Mays occasionally fairer, butusually more foul.

  Among the larger shrubs and flowers which composed the outworks of theWelland gardens, the lilac, the laburnum, and the guelder-rose hung outtheir respective colours of purple, yellow, and white; whilst withinthese, belted round from every disturbing gale, rose the columbine, thepeony, the larkspur, and the Solomon's seal. The animate things thatmoved amid this scene of colour were plodding bees, gadding butterflies,and numerous sauntering young feminine candidates for the impendingconfirmation, who, having gaily bedecked themselves for the ceremony,were enjoying their own appearance by walking about in twos and threestill it was time to start.

  Swithin St. Cleeve, whose preparations were somewhat simpler than thoseof the village belles, waited till his grandmother and Hannah had setout, and then, locking the door, followed towards the distant church. Onreaching the churchyard gate he met Mr. Torkingham, who shook hands withhim in the manner of a man with several irons in the fire, and tellingSwithin where to sit, disappeared to hunt up some candidates who had notyet made themselves visible.

  Casting his eyes round for Viviette, and seeing nothing of her, Swithinwent on to the church porch, and looked in. From the north side of thenave smiled a host of girls, gaily uniform in dress, age, and a temporaryrepression of their natural tendency to 'skip like a hare over the meshesof good counsel.' Their white muslin dresses, their round white caps,from beneath whose borders hair-knots and curls of various shades ofbrown escaped upon their low shoulders, as if against their will, lightedup the dark pews and grey stone-work to an unwonted warmth and life. Onthe south side were the young men and boys,--heavy, angular, and massive,as indeed was rather necessary, considering what they would have to bearat the hands of wind and weather before they returned to that mouldy navefor the last time.

  Over the heads of all these he could see into the chancel to the squarepew on the north side, which was attached to Welland House. There hediscerned Lady Constantine already arrived, her brother Louis sitting byher side.

  Swithin entered and seated himself at the end of a bench, and she, whohad been on the watch, at once showed by subtle signs her consciousnessof the presence of the young man who had reversed the ordained sequenceof the Church services on her account. She appeared in black attire,though not strictly in mourning, a touch of red in her bonnet setting offthe richness of her complexion without making her gay. Handsomest womanin the church she decidedly was; and yet a disinterested spectator whohad known all the circumstances would probably have felt that, the futureconsidered, Swithin's more natural mate would have been one of the muslin-clad maidens who were to be presented to the Bishop with him that day.

  When the Bishop had arrived and gone into the chancel, and blown hisnose, the congregation were sufficiently impressed by his presence toleave off looking at one another.

  The Right Reverend Cuthbert Helmsdale, D.D., ninety-fourth occupant ofthe episcopal throne of the diocese, revealed himself to be a personageof dark complexion, whose darkness was thrown still further intoprominence by the lawn protuberances that now rose upon his two shoulderslike the Eastern and Western hemispheres. In stature he seemed to betall and imposing, but something of this aspect may have been derivedfrom his robes.

  The service was, as usual, of a length which severely tried the tarryingpowers of the young people assembled; and it was not till the youth ofall the other parishes had gone up that the turn came for the Wellandbevy. Swithin and some older ones were nearly the last. When, at theheels of Mr. Torkingham, he passed Lady Constantine's pew, he lifted hiseyes from the red lining of that gentleman's hood sufficiently high tocatch hers. She was abstracted, tearful, regarding him with all the raptmingling of religion, love, fervour, and hope which such women can feelat such times, and which men know nothing of. How fervidly she watchedthe Bishop place his hand on her beloved youth's head; how she saw thegreat episcopal ring glistening in the sun among Swithin's brown curls;how she waited to hear if Dr. Helmsdale uttered the form 'this thy child'which he used for the younger ones, or 'this thy servant' which he usedfor those older; and how, when he said, 'this thy _child_,' she felt aprick of conscience, like a person who had entrapped an innocent youthinto marriage for her own gratification, till she remembered that she hadraised his social position thereby,--all this could only have been toldin its entirety by herself.

  As for Swithin, he felt ashamed of his own utter lack of the highenthusiasm which beamed so eloquently from her eyes. When he passed heragain, on the return journey from the Bishop to his seat, her face waswarm with a blush which her brother might have observed had he regardedher.

  Whether he had observed it or not, as soon as St. Cleeve had sat himselfdown again Louis Glanville turned and looked hard at the youngastronomer. This was the first time that St. Cleeve and Viviette'sbrother had been face to face in a distinct light, their first meetinghaving occurred in the dusk of a railway-station. Swithin was not in thehabit of noticing people's features; he scarcely ever observed any detailof physiognomy in his friends, a generalization from their whole aspectforming his idea of them; and he now only noted a young man of perhapsthirty, who lolled a good deal, and in whose small dark eyes seemed to beconcentrated the activity that the rest of his frame decidedly lacked.This gentleman's eyes were henceforward, to the end of the service,continually fixed upon Swithin; but as this was their natural direction,from the position of his seat, there was no great strangeness in thecircumstance.

  Swithin wanted to say to Viviette, 'Now I hope you are pleased; I haveconformed to your ideas of my duty, leaving my fitness out ofconsideration' but as he could only see her bonnet and forehead it wasnot possible even to look the intelligence. He turned to his left hand,where the organ stood, with Miss Tabitha Lark seated behind it.

  It being now sermon-time the youthful blower had fallen asleep over thehandle of his bellows, and Tabitha pulled out her handkerchief intendingto flap him awake with it. With the handkerchief tumbled out a wholefamily of unexpected articles: a silver thimble; a photograph; a littlepurse; a scent-bottle; some loose halfpence; nine green gooseberries; akey. They rolled to Swithin's feet, and, passively obeying his firstinstinct, he picked up as many of the articles as he could find, andhanded them to her amid the smiles of the neighbours.

  Tabitha was half-dead with humiliation at such an event, happening underthe very eyes of the Bishop on this glorious occasion she turned pale asa sheet, and could hardly keep her seat. Fearing she might faint,Swithin, who had genuinely sympathized, bent over and whisperedencouragingly, 'Don't mind it, Tabitha. Shall I take you out into theair?' She declined his offer, and presently the sermon came to an end.

  Swithin lingered behind the rest of the congregation sufficiently long tosee Lady Constantine, accompanied by her brother, the Bishop, theBishop's chaplain, Mr. Torkingham, and several other clergy and ladies,enter to the grand luncheon by the door which admitted from thechurchyard to the lawn of Welland House; the whole group talking with avivacity all the more intense, as it seemed, from the recent two hours'enforced repression of their social qualities within the adjoiningbuilding.

  The young man stood till he was left quite alone in the churchyard, andthen went slowly homeward over the hill, perhaps a trifle depressed atthe impossibility of being near Viviette in this her one day of gaiety,and joining in the conversation of those who surrounded her.

  Not that he felt much jealousy of her situation, as his wife, incomparison with his own. He had so clearly understood from the beginningthat, in the event of marriage, their outward lives were to run on asbefore, that to rebel now would have been unmanly in himself and cruel toher, by adding to embarrassments that were great
enough already. Hismomentary doubt was of his own strength to achieve sufficiently highthings to render him, in relation to her, other than a patronized youngfavourite, whom she had married at an immense sacrifice of position. Now,at twenty, he was doomed to isolation even from a wife; could it be thatat, say thirty, he would be welcomed everywhere?

  But with motion through the sun and air his mood assumed a lightercomplexion, and on reaching home he remembered with interest that Venuswas in a favourable aspect for observation that afternoon.