A Blot in the Scutcheon | Page 8

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.
ACT II
SCENE.--The Library
Enter LORD TRESHAM, hastily
TRESHAM. This way! In, Gerard, quick!
[As GERARD enters, TRESHAM secures the door.]
Now speak! or, wait-- I'll bid you speak directly.
[Seats himself.]
Now repeat?Firmly and circumstantially the tale?You just now told me; it eludes me; either?I did not listen, or the half is gone?Away from me. How long have you lived here??Here in my house, your father kept our woods?Before you?
GERARD. --As his father did, my lord.?I have been eating, sixty years almost,?Your bread.
TRESHAM. Yes, yes. You ever were of all?The servants in my father's house, I know,?The trusted one. You'll speak the truth.
GERARD. I'll speak?God's truth. Night after night...
TRESHAM. Since when?
GERARD. At least?A month--each midnight has some man access?To Lady Mildred's chamber.
TRESHAM. Tush, "access"--?No wide words like "access" to me!
GERARD. He runs?Along the woodside, crosses to the South,?Takes the left tree that ends the avenue...
TRESHAM. The last great yew-tree?
GERARD. You might stand upon?The main boughs like a platform. Then he...
TRESHAM. Quick!
GERARD. Climbs up, and, where they lessen at the top,?--I cannot see distinctly, but he throws,?I think--for this I do not vouch--a line?That reaches to the lady's casement--
TRESHAM. --Which?He enters not! Gerard, some wretched fool?Dares pry into my sister's privacy!?When such are young, it seems a precious thing?To have approached,--to merely have approached,?Got sight of the abode of her they set?Their frantic thoughts upon. Ha does not enter??Gerard?
GERARD. There is a lamp that's full i' the midst.?Under a red square in the painted glass?Of Lady Mildred's...
TRESHAM. Leave that name out! Well??That lamp?
GERARD. Is moved at midnight higher up?To one pane--a small dark-blue pane; he waits?For that among the boughs: at