Tres. He lacked wit? Where might he lack wit, so please
Guen. In standing straighter than the steward's rod
And making you the tiresomest harangue,
Instead of slipping over to my side
And softly whispering in my ear, "Sweet lady,
Your cousin there will do me detriment
He little dreams of: he's absorbed, I see,
In my old name and fame-be sure he'll leave
My Mildred when his best account of me
Is ended, in full confidence I wear
My grandsire's periwig down either cheek.
I'm lost unless your gentleness vouchsafes —”
Tres. "To give a best of best accounts, yourself,
Of me and my demerits." You are right!
He should have said what now I say for him.
You golden creature, will you help us all?
Here's Austin means to vouch for much, but you
You are - what Austin only knows!
All three of us; she's in the library
No doubt, for the day's wearing fast.
Guen. Austin, how we must- -!
Tres.
Malignant tongue! Detect one fault in him!
I challenge you!
Witchcraft's a fault in him,
He's out of your good graces, since forsooth,
He stood not as he 'd carry us by storm
With his perfections! You're for the composed,
Manly, assured, becoming confidence! -
Get her to say, to-morrow," and I'll give you
I'll give you black Urganda, to be spoiled
With petting and snail-paces. Will you? Come !
SCENE III. - MILDRED'S CHAMBER. A PAINTED WINDOW OVERLOOKS THE PARK. MILDRED AND GUENDOLEN
Guen. Now, Mildred, spare those pains. I have not left
Our talkers in the library, and climbed
The wearisome ascent to this your bower
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
Firm-rooted heresy-your suitor's eyes,
He would maintain, were gray 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 —
To be dismissed so coolly!
Mil.
Guendolen !
What have I done? what could suggest-
Guen.
Do I not comprehend you'd be alone
To throw those testimonies in a heap,
Thorold's enlargings, Austin's brevities,
With that poor silly, heartless Guendolen's
Ill-timed, misplaced, attempted smartnesses -
And sift their sense out? now, I come, to spare you
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 —
The bow-hand or the arrow-hand's great meed?
Mildred, the Earl has soft blue eyes!
Mil.
My brother-
Did he - you said that he received him well?
Guen. If I said only 'well' I said not much
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
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.
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?
You wrong him, Guendolen.
Guen. He's proud, confess; so proud with brooding o'er The light of his interminable line,
An ancestry with men all paladins,
Dear Guendolen, 't is late!
When yonder purple pane the climbing moon
Pierces, I know 't is midnight.
Guen.
Well, that Thorold
Should rise up from such musings, and receive
One come audaciously to graft himself
Into this peerless stock, yet find no flaw,
No slightest spot in such an one
Good night and rest to you!
I said how gracefully his mantle lay
Beneath the rings of his light hair?
Mil.
Guen. Brown? why it is brown - how could you know that? Mil. How? did not you - Oh? Austin 't was, declared His hair was light, not brown my head!—and look, The moonbeam purpling the dark chamber! Sweet, Good night!
Guen. 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
Whose garter slipped down at the famous dance!
Mil. 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.]
[She returns to the seat in front.
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
It comes too late: 't will sweetest be of all
To dream my soul away and die upon.
The voice! Oh! 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 dewdrop, she's so purer than the purest;
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 wild-grape 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.
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 the seat, and bends over her.
I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me,
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!
Mil. Sit, Henry-do not take my hand!
Mer.
The meeting that appalled us both so much
Is ended.
Our happiness would, as you say, exceed
The whole world's best of blisses: 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,
And so familiar now; this will not be !
Mer. O 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
Save you, to venture? Have I gained at last
Your brother, the one scarer of your dreams,
And waking thoughts' sole apprehension too?
Does a new life, like a young sunrise, break
On the strange unrest of our night, confused
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,
When I have won you and may worship you,
O Mildred, can you say "this will not be?"
Mil. Sin has surprised us; so will punishment.
Mer. No me alone, who sinned alone!
I spoke what am I, what my life, to waste
A thought about when you are by me? — you
It was, I said my folly called the storm
And pulled the night upon. 'T was day with me
Perpetual dawn with me.
Come what come will,
You have been happy: take my hand!
Mer. [After a pause].
Your brother is! I figured him a cold
Shall I say, haughty man?
Oh! what is over? what must I live through
And say, "'t is over"? Is our meeting over?
Have I received in presence of them all
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
A stranger's Henry, yours that stranger's-lip
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