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Delagarde blinked. “This is a comet? Why a comet?”
“To tell you the truth, they are not my real passion. But Great-uncle was comet crazy. Between him and Charles Messier there was nothing to choose. They were always in correspondence, and Messier wrote very kindly to me to express his sense of loss when Great-uncle died.”
“But you are not comet crazy?”
“I am planet crazy. Or rather, my fascination is with the satellites which attend them. My greatest hero is Galileo, who proved beyond all doubt—and it was by the behaviour of satellites that he did so—that it is the earth which travels around the sun, and not the other way about.”
Enthusiasm lit her features, and Delagarde gazed in dawning wonder, as he listened to the first intelligent exposition he had ever heard issuing from the lips of a young female. Theories and counter-theories battered at his brain, and he very quickly became lost in the morass of unknown names with which Maidie littered her discourse. Whatever social inadequacies might have resulted from her peculiar upbringing, there was no doubt Reginald Hope’s encouragement of a burgeoning interest had fostered a mind which must command his deepest respect. Maidie was infuriating, yes. But she was not merely unusual. She was unique.
A burst of laughter from where his great-aunt had seated herself upon the bed, divorced from the proceedings, stopped Maidie in mid-stride. She turned to Lady Hester, and found that dame brimming with mirth.
“My dear Maidie, you will have his head off in a moment!”
Maidie looked again at Delagarde, in some dismay. She had been carried away by his questions, quite forgetting to whom she was speaking. She was prattling away like this to Delagarde, of all people. She was sure his interest in the subject, if he had any at all, was but tepid. Most people, so Great-uncle had warned her, would be bored into a stupor by what they both found so fascinating. Moreover, Delagarde was a man of fashion—what could be more opposed?
“I beg your pardon. You should not have asked me about it. Adela says I lose all sense of other people when I sit upon my hobby-horse, and I dare say she is right. I do try to remember one’s passion may be of no interest at all to others.”
“Don’t!” Delagarde said, smiling at her in a way she found singularly unsettling. “It is rather I who should be apologising for doubting you. I begin to perceive why you expressed so much reluctance to become involved in the social whirl.”
“Well, it is true I didn’t want to do so,” Maidie admitted, trying to recover her poise, “but in fact I am quite enjoying it. Perhaps because I had only chosen to track this comet for Great-uncle’s sake, so I have not been truly averse to having my work interrupted.”
“Had you been tracking a planet, on the other hand…?” he suggested, with a questioning lift to one eyebrow.
That made her laugh. “One does not track a planet. However, I know what you mean to say.” In a confiding manner which amused Delagarde, she told him, “The fact is my own work has been held up because I need a more powerful telescope. I thought it better not to attempt to have one built until I have my own establishment. They are most unwieldy, and I would not wish to have to move it once it had been erected.”
“No doubt you are wise,” Delagarde said gravely, ignoring the stifled sounds issuing from Lady Hester. “We must trust it will not be long before you are suitably settled, and able to command your husband’s help.”
“Oh, I shan’t ask him! That is just why I am anxious to marry someone who is not particular about what I do. He may have his forty-five thousand pounds with my good will, if only he will refrain from interfering. Besides, I cannot think a gentleman seeking to marry a fortune will have any interest in astronomy. He is far more likely to bury himself in cards, or sporting pursuits.”
“And you won’t mind that?”
“Why should I? Provided he will not mind my burying myself in my observatory.”
Delagarde shook his head. “You are the strangest girl. I have never heard a more absurd reason for matrimony. Why don’t you look for a husband among those who attended this lecture—or some other who shares your own enthusiasm for the subject?”
Maidie sighed. “I wish I might. But there is hardly a glut in the world of eligible astronomers.”
“Perhaps not. But I can’t for the life of me believe you will be happy with anyone else.” He found himself so disturbed by this thought he hurried again into speech. “My good girl, you are making a great mistake. Do you really think any man—even a fortune-hunter—will be so complaisant as to allow his wife to abjure his world, to become so eccentric a recluse as your great-uncle? Is that what you want?”
She was silent, staring at him in puzzlement. Put like that, she was unable to answer him. She had thought of marriage only as a means to an end. She merely wanted to be left alone. But might this be the result of enduring life under Adela’s rule, when she had been obliged to do as another bid her, and not as she wished? For she wished only for the freedom to carry on her work. Except that this taste of town life had its attractions. If she had not come, she would not have heard the lecture, or met Sir Granville Wilberfoss. There was, she found, something of greater pleasure in returning to star-gazing when one was not always able to do it. In England, with the uncertain weather, one’s observing was often frustrated. She found it tedious to use the time in complicated mathematical calculations, drawing up better maps or improving one’s charts. It might be a relief to while away bad weather at a social gathering instead.
She came out of these thoughts to find Delagarde still awaiting some response, and Lady Hester watching her with a twinkle in her eye. There was all at once a trace of heaviness in her chest, and she could not think why.
“Perhaps you would then advise me to remain a spinster?”
He flung away rather suddenly. “God forbid—if it means I will have you on my hands for life!”
A dart seemed to pierce Maidie’s breast. She turned away and made a business of laying down her maps and charts on the whatnot, putting them into some semblance of order. Why such a comment should hurt her, she could not imagine. No, that was humdudgeon. She was not precisely hurt. It was not as if Delagarde had not addressed many such remarks to her. Only why now, when they had seemed to be achieving a measure of understanding?
Delagarde was as much at a loss to account for his hasty remark. He could not think why he had said it. True it might be, but somehow—perhaps because of this new image he had of Maidie—it seemed a hurtful thing to say to her. He turned, trying to think of some way of mitigating it. But his mind had gone blank. He watched her rearranging her papers, and the only thing that entered his brain was the obvious thought it was going to be hard indeed for her to find a husband with whom she might share a common interest. It would scarcely lessen the damage to voice such a notion.
On the whole he was glad to be spared the necessity of talking any further by the intervention of Aunt Hes, who rose from the bed.
“It is far too late to be entering upon such a discussion. Now go away, do, Laurie. This improper proceeding has served its turn.”
Maidie looked round quickly. “Improper?”
“For Laurie to be in your bedchamber.”
