Chapter 3

--MILDRED'S Chamber. A Painted Window overlooks the Park

MILDRED and GUENDOLEN

GUENDOLEN. 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 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,) 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 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 Nearly a whole night's labour. Ask and have! Demand, he 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!

MILDRED. My brother-- Did he... you said that he received him well?

GUENDOLEN. If I said only "well" I said not much. 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 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?

MILDRED. You wrong him, Guendolen.

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! 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 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, Not the whole world.

MILDRED. I am weary, Guendolen. Bear with me!

GUENDOLEN. I am foolish.

MILDRED. Oh no, kind! 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.

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!

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 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.] 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: '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 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 her 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!

MILDRED. Sit, Henry--do not take my hand!

MERTOUN. 'Tis mine. The meeting that appalled us both so much Is ended.

MILDRED. What begins now?

MERTOUN. Happiness Such as the world contains not.

MILDRED. That is it. 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, 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 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, 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 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 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!

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.

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 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-- 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 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 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 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!

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 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 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 it from me!--but no--no, you'll not 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 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, 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 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 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, enjoined you secrecy, 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-- 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 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 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? 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.

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, 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.

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?

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! 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.