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MILDRED’S Chamber. A Painted Window overlooks the Park. | |
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MILDRED and GUENDOLEN | |
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| Guendolen. Now, Mildred, spare those pains. I have not left | |
| Our talkers in the library, and climbed | |
| The wearisome ascent to this your bower | 5 |
| In company with you,—I have not dared… | |
| Nay, worked such prodigies as sparing you | |
| Lord Mertoun’s pedigree before the flood, | |
| Which Thorold seemed in very act to tell | |
| —Or bringing Austin to pluck up that most | 10 |
| Firm-rooted heresy—your suitor’s eyes, | |
| He would maintain, were grey instead of blue— | |
| I think I brought him to contrition!—Well, | |
| I have not done such things, (all to deserve | |
| A minute’s quiet cousin’s talk with you,) | 15 |
| To be dismissed so coolly. | |
| Mildred. Guendolen! | |
| What have I done? what could suggest… | |
| Guendolen. There, there! | |
| Do I not comprehend you’d be alone | 20 |
| To throw those testimonies in a heap, | |
| Thorold’s enlargings, Austin’s brevities, | |
| With that poor silly heartless Guendolen’s | |
| Ill-time misplaced attempted smartnesses— | |
| And sift their sense out? now, I come to spare you | 25 |
| Nearly a whole night’s labour. Ask and have! | |
| Demand, be answered! Lack I ears and eyes? | |
| Am I perplexed which side of the rock-table | |
| The Conqueror dined on when he landed first, | |
| Lord Mertoun’s ancestor was bidden take— | 30 |
| The bow-hand or the arrow-hand’s great meed? | |
| Mildred, the Earl has soft blue eyes! | |
| Mildred. My brother— | |
| Did he … you said that he received him well? | |
| Guendolen. If I said only “well” I said not much. | 35 |
| Oh, stay—which brother? | |
| Mildred. Thorold! who—who else? | |
| Guendolen. Thorold (a secret) is too proud by half,— | |
| Nay, hear me out—with us he’s even gentler | |
| Than we are with our birds. Of this great House | 40 |
| The least retainer that e’er caught his glance | |
| Would die for him, real dying—no mere talk: | |
| And in the world, the court, if men would cite | |
| The perfect spirit of honour, Thorold’s name | |
| Rises of its clear nature to their lips. | 45 |
| But he should take men’s homage, trust in it, | |
| And care no more about what drew it down. | |
| He has desert, and that, acknowledgment; | |
| Is he content? | |
| Mildred. You wrong him, Guendolen. | 50 |
| Guendolen. He’s proud, confess; so proud with brooding o’er | |
| The light of his interminable line, | |
| An ancestry with men all paladins, | |
| And women all… | |
| Mildred. Dear Guendolen, ’tis late! | 55 |
| When yonder purple pane the climbing moon | |
| Pierces, I know ’tis midnight. | |
| Guendolen. Well, that Thorold | |
| Should rise up from such musings, and receive | |
| One come audaciously to graft himself | 60 |
| Into this peerless stock, yet find no flaw, | |
| No slightest spot in such an one… | |
| Mildred. Who finds | |
| A spot in Mertoun? | |
| Guendolen. Not your brother; therefore, | 65 |
| Not the whole world. | |
| Mildred. I am weary, Guendolen, | |
| Bear with me! | |
| Guendolen. I am foolish. | |
| Mildred. Oh no, kind! | 70 |
| But I would rest. | |
| Guendolen. Good night and rest to you! | |
| I said how gracefully his mantle lay | |
| Beneath the rings of his light hair? | |
| Mildred. Brown hair. | 75 |
| Guendolen. Brown? why, it is brown: how could you know that? | |
| Mildred. How? did not you—Oh, Austin ’twas, declared | |
| His hair was light, not brown—my head!—and look, | |
| The moon-beam purpling the dark chamber! Sweet, | |
| Good night! | 80 |
| Guendolen. Forgive me—sleep the soundlier for me! [Going, she turns suddenly. | |
| Mildred! | |
| Perdition! all’s discovered! Thorold finds | |
| —That the Earl’s greatest of all grandmothers | |
| Was grander daughter still—to that fair dame | 85 |
| Whose garter slipped down at the famous dance! [Goes. | |
| Mildred. Is she—can she be really gone at last? | |
| My heart! I shall not reach the window. Needs | |
| Must I have sinned much, so to suffer. [She lifts the small lamp which is suspended before the Virgin’s image in the window, and places it by the purple pane. | |
| There! [She returns to the seat in front. | 90 |
| Mildred and Mertoun! Mildred, with consent | |
| Of all the world and Thorold, Mertoun’s bride! | |
| Too late! ’Tis sweet to think of, sweeter still | |
| To hope for, that this blessed end soothes up | |
| The curse of the beginning; but I know | 95 |
| It comes too late: ’twill sweetest be of all | |
| To dream my soul away and die upon. [A noise without. | |
| The voice! Oh why, why glided sin the snake | |
| Into the paradise Heaven meant us both? [The window opens softly. A low voice sings. | |
| There’s a woman like a dew-drop, she’s so purer than purest; | 100 |
| And her noble heart’s the noblest, yes, and her sure faith’s the surest: | |
| And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre | |
| Hid i’ the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wildgrape cluster, | |
| Gush in golden tinted plenty down her neck’s rose-misted marble | |
| Then her voice’s music … call it the well’s bubbling, the bird’s warble! [A figure wrapped in a mantle appears at the window. | 105 |
| And this woman says, “My days were sunless and my nights were moonless, | |
| Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark’s heart’s outbreak tuneless, | |
| If you loved me not!” And I who—(ah, for words of flame!) adore her, | |
| Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her— [He enters, approaches her seat, and bends over her. | |
| I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me, | 110 |
| And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she makes me! [The EARL throws off his slouched hat and long cloak. | |
| My very heart sings, so I sing. Beloved! | |
| Mildred. Sit, Henry—do not take my hand! | |
| Mertoun. ’Tis mine. | |
| The meeting that appalled us both so much | 115 |
| Is ended. | |
| Mildred. What begins now? | |
| Mertoun. Happiness | |
| Such as the world contains not. | |
| Mildred. That is it. | 120 |
| Our happiness would, as you say, exceed | |
| The whole world’s best of blisses: we—do we | |
| Deserve that? Utter to your soul, what mine | |
| Long since, Beloved, has grown used to hear, | |
| Like a death-knell, so much regarded once, | 125 |
| And so familiar now; this will not be! | |
| Mertoun. Oh, Mildred, have I met your brother’s face? | |
| Compelled myself—if not to speak untruth, | |
| Yet to disguise, to shun, to put aside | |
| The truth, as—what had e’er prevailed on me | 130 |
| Save you to venture? Have I gained at last | |
| Your brother, the one scarer of your dreams, | |
| And waking thoughts’ sole parrehension too? | |
| Does a new life, like a young sunrise, break | |
| On the strange unrest of our night, confused | 135 |
| With rain and stormy flaw—and will you see | |
| No dripping blossoms, no fire-tinted drops | |
| On each live spray, no vapour steaming up, | |
| And no expressless glory in the East? | |
| When I am by you, to be ever by you, | 140 |
| When I have won you and may worship you, | |
| Oh, Mildred, can you say “this will not be”? | |
| Mildred. sin has surprised us, so will punishment. | |
| Mertoun. No—me alone, who sinned alone! | |
| Mildred. The night | 145 |
| You likened our past life to—was it storm | |
| Throughout to you then, Henry? | |
| Mertoun. Of your life | |
| I spoke—what am I, what my life, to waste | |
| A thought about when you are by me?—you | 150 |
| It was, I said my folly called the storm | |
| And pulled the night upon. ’Twas day with me— | |
| Perpetual dawn with me. | |
| Mildred. Come what, come will, | |
| You have been happy: take my hand! | 155 |
| Mertoun [after a pause]. How good | |
| Your brother is! I figured him a cold— | |
| Shall I say, haughty man? | |
| Mildred. They told me all. | |
| I know all. | 160 |
| Mertoun. It will soon be over. | |
| Mildred. Over? | |
| Oh, what is over? what must I live through | |
| And say, “’tis over”? Is our meeting over? | |
| Have I received in presence of them all | 165 |
| The partner of my guilty love—with brow | |
| Trying to seem a maiden’s brow—with lips | |
| Which make believe that when they strive to form | |
| Replies to you and tremble as they strive, | |
| It is the nearest ever they approached | 170 |
| A stranger’s … Henry, yours that stranger’s … lip— | |
| With cheek that looks a virgin’s, and that is… | |
| Ah God, some prodigy of thine will stop | |
| This planned piece of deliberate wickedness | |
| In its birth even! some fierce leprous spot | 175 |
| Will mar the brow’s dissimulating! I | |
| Shall murmur no smooth speeches got by heart, | |
| But, frenzied, pour forth all our woeful story, | |
| The love, the shame, and the despair—with them | |
| Round me aghast as round some cursed fount | 180 |
| That should spirt water, and spouts blood. I’ll not | |
| … Henry, you do not wish that I should draw | |
| This vengeance down? I’ll not affect a grace | |
| That’s gone from me—gone once, and gone for ever! | |
| Mertoun. Mildred, my honour is your own. I’ll share | 185 |
| Disgrace I cannot suffer by myself. | |
| A word informs your brother I retract | |
| This morning’s offer; time will yet bring forth | |
| Some better way of saving both of us. | |
| Mildred. I’ll meet their faces, Henry! | 190 |
| Mertoun. When? to-morrow! | |
| Get done with it! | |
| Mildred. Oh, Henry, not to-morrow! | |
| Next day! I never shall prepare my words | |
| And looks and gestures sooner.—How you must | 195 |
| Despise me! | |
| Mertoun. Mildred, break it if you choose, | |
| A heart the love of you uplifted—still | |
| Uplifts, thro’ this protracted agony, | |
| To heaven! but Mildred, answer me,—first pace | 200 |
| The chamber with me—once again—now, say | |
| Calmly the part, the … what it is of me | |
| You see contempt (for you did say contempt) | |
| —Contempt for you in! I would pluck it off | |
| And cast if from me!—but no—no, you’ll not | 205 |
| Repeat that?—will you, Mildred, repeat that? | |
| Mildred. Dear Henry! | |
| Mertoun. I was scarce a boy—e’en now | |
| What am I more? And you were infantine | |
| When first I met you; why, your hair fell loose | 210 |
| On either side! My fool’s-cheek reddens now | |
| Only in the recalling how it burned | |
| That morn to see the shape of many a dream | |
| —You know we boys are prodigal of charms | |
| To her we dream of—I had heard of one, | 215 |
| Had dreamed of her, and I was close to her, | |
| Might speak to her, might live and die her own, | |
| Who knew? I spoke. Oh, Mildred, feel you not | |
| That now, while I remember every glance | |
| Of yours, each word of yours, with power to test | 220 |
| And weigh them in the diamond scales of pride, | |
| Resolved the treasure of a first and last | |
| Heart’s love shall have been bartered at its worth, | |
| —That now I think upon your purity. | |
| And utter ignorance of guilt—your own | 225 |
| Or other’s guilt—the girlish undisguised | |
| Delight at a strange novel prize—(I talk | |
| A silly language, but interpret, you!) | |
| If I, with fancy at its full, and reason | |
| Scarce in its germ, enjoyed you secrecy, | 230 |
| If you had pity on my passion, pity | |
| On my protested sickness of the soul | |
| To sit beside you, hear you breathe, and watch | |
| Your eyelids and the eyes beneath—if you | |
| Accorded gifts and knew not they were gifts— | 235 |
| If I grew mad at last with enterprise | |
| And must behold my beauty in her bower | |
| Or perish—(I was ignorant of even | |
| My own desires—what then were you?) if sorrow— | |
| Sin—if the end came—must I now renounce | 240 |
| My reason, blind myself to light, say truth | |
| Is false and lie to God and my own soul? | |
| Contempt were all of this! | |
| Mildred. Do you believe… | |
| Or, Henry, I’ll not wrong you—you believe | 245 |
| That I was ignorant. I scarce grieve o’er | |
| The past. We’ll love on; you will love me still. | |
| Mertoun. Oh, to love less what one has injured! Dove | |
| Whose pinion I have rashly hurt, my breast— | |
| Shall my heart’s warmth not nurse thee into strength? | 250 |
| Flower I have crushed, shall I not care for thee? | |
| Bloom o’er my crest, my fight-mark and device! | |
| Mildred, I love you and you love me. | |
| Mildred. Go! | |
| Be that your last word. I shall sleep to-night. | 255 |
| Mertoun. This is not our last meeting? | |
| Mildred. One night more. | |
| Mertoun. And then—think, then! | |
| Mildred. Then, no sweet courtship-days, | |
| No dawning consciousness of love for us, | 260 |
| No strange and palpitating births of sense | |
| From words and looks, no innocent fears and hopes, | |
| Reserves and confidences: morning’s over! | |
| Mertoun. How else should love’s perfected noontide follow? | |
| All the dawn promised shall the day perform. | 265 |
| Mildred. So may it be! but— | |
| You are cautious, Love? | |
| Are sure that unobserved you scaled the walls? | |
| Mertoun. Oh, trust me! Then our final meeting’s fixed | |
| To-morrow night? | 270 |
| Mildred. Farewell! stay, Henry … wherefore? | |
| His foot is on the yew-tree bough; the turf | |
| Receives him: now the moonlight as he runs | |
| Embraces him—but he must go—is gone. | |
| Ah, once again he turns—thanks, thanks, my Love! | 275 |
| He’s gone. Oh, I’ll believe him every word! | |
| I was so young, I loved him so, I had | |
| No mother, God forgot me, and I fell. | |
| There may be pardon yet: all’s doubt beyond! | |
| Surely the bitterness of death is past. | 280 |
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