He found that the shutters had been opened, which had restored an unexpected liveliness to the aspect of the windows. Two men were putting a chimney-pot on one of the chimney-stacks, and two more were scraping green mould from the front wall. He made no inquiries on that occasion. Three days later he strolled thitherward again. Now a great cleaning of window-panes was going on, Hezzy Biles and Sammy Blore being the operators, for which purpose their services must have been borrowed from the neighbouring farmer. Hezzy dashed water at the glass with a force that threatened to break it in, the broad face of Sammy being discernible inside, smiling at the onset. In addition to these, Anthony Green and another were weeding the gravel walks, and putting fresh plants into the flower-beds. Neither of these reasonable operations was a great undertaking, singly looked at; but the life Viviette had latterly led and the mood in which she had hitherto regarded the premises, rendered it somewhat significant. Swithin, however, was rather curious than concerned at the proceedings, and returned to his tower with feelings of interest not entirely confined to the worlds overhead.
Lady Constantine may or may not have seen him from the house; but the same evening, which was fine and dry, while he was occupying himself in the observatory with cleaning the eye-pieces of the equatorial, skull-cap on head, observing-jacket on, and in other ways primed for sweeping, the customary stealthy step on the winding staircase brought her form in due course into the rays of the bull’s-eye lantern. The meeting was all the more pleasant to him from being unexpected, and he at once lit up a larger lamp in honour of the occasion.
‘It is but a hasty visit,’ she said when, after putting up her mouth to be kissed, she had seated herself in the low chair used for observations, panting a little with the labour of ascent. ‘But I hope to be able to come more freely soon. My brother is still living on with me. Yes, he is going to stay until the confirmation is over. After the confirmation he will certainly leave. So good it is of you, dear, to please me by agreeing to the ceremony. The Bishop, you know, is going to lunch with us. It is a wonder he has promised to come, for he is a man averse to society, and mostly keeps entirely with the clergy on these confirmation tours, or circuits, or whatever they call them. But Mr. Torkingham’s house is so very small, and mine is so close at hand, that this arrangement to relieve him of the fuss of one meal, at least, naturally suggested itself; and the Bishop has fallen in with it very readily. How are you getting on with your observations? Have you not wanted me dreadfully, to write down notes?’
‘Well, I have been obliged to do without you, whether or no. See here,—how much I have done.’ And he showed her a book ruled in columns, headed ‘Object,’ ‘Right Ascension,’ ‘Declination,’ ‘Features,’ ‘Remarks,’ and so on.
She looked over this and other things, but her mind speedily winged its way back to the confirmation. ‘It is so new to me,’ she said, ‘to have persons coming to the house, that I feel rather anxious. I hope the luncheon will be a success.’
‘You know the Bishop?’ said Swithin.
‘I have not seen him for many years. I knew him when I was quite a girl, and he held the little living of Puddle-sub-Mixen, near us; but after that time, and ever since I have lived here, I have seen nothing of him. There has been no confirmation in this village, they say, for twenty years. The other bishop used to make the young men and women go to Warborne; he wouldn’t take the trouble to come to such an out-of-the-way parish as ours.’
‘This cleaning and preparation that I observe going on must be rather a tax upon you?’
‘My brother Louis sees to it, and, what is more, bears the expense.’
‘Your brother?’ said Swithin, with surprise.