A Blot in the Scutcheon | Page 7

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