A Blot in the Scutcheon | Page 6

your cousin, tamely from the first?Your bride, and all this fervour's run to waste!?Do you know you speak sensibly to-day??The Earl's a fool.
AUSTIN. Here's Thorold. Tell him so!
TRESHAM [returning]. Now, voices, voices! 'St! the lady's first! How seems he?--seems he not... come, faith give fraud?The mercy-stroke whenever they engage!?Down with fraud, up with faith! How seems the Earl??A name! a blazon! if you knew their worth,?As you will never! come--the Earl?
GUENDOLEN. He's young.
TRESHAM. What's she? an infant save in heart and brain.?Young! Mildred is fourteen, remark! And you...?Austin, how old is she?
GUENDOLEN. There's tact for you!?I meant that being young was good excuse?If one should tax him...
TRESHAM. Well?
GUENDOLEN. --With lacking wit.
TRESHAM. He lacked wit? Where might he lack wit, so please you?
GUENDOLEN. 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"...
TRESHAM... "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.?Yon golden creature, will you help us all??Here's Austin means to vouch for much, but you?--You are... what Austin only knows! Come up,?All three of us: she's in the library?No doubt, for the day's wearing fast. Precede!
GUENDOLEN. Austin, how we must--!
TRESHAM. Must what? Must speak truth, Malignant tongue! Detect one fault in him!?I challenge you!
GUENDOLEN. Witchcraft's a fault in him,?For you're bewitched.
TRESHAM. What's urgent we obtain?Is, that she soon receive him--say, to-morrow--,?Next day at furthest.
GUENDOLEN. Ne'er instruct me!
TRESHAM. Come!?--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
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, 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!
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