| |
The end of the Yew-tree Avenue under MILDRED’S Window. A light seen through a central red pane. | |
| |
Enter TRESHAM through the trees | |
| |
| Tresham. Again here! But I cannot lose myself. | |
| The heath—the orchard—I have traversed glades | |
| And dells and bosky paths which used to lead | 5 |
| Into green wild-wood depths, bewildering | |
| My boy’s adventurous step. And now they tend | |
| Hither or soon or late; the blackest shade | |
| Breaks up, the thronged trunks of the trees ope wide, | |
| And the dim turret I have fled from, fronts | 10 |
| Again my step; the very river put | |
| Its arm about me and conducted me | |
| To this detested spot. Why then, I’ll shun | |
| Their will no longer: do your will with me! | |
| Oh, bitter! To have reared a towering scheme | 15 |
| Of happiness, and to behold it razed, | |
| Were nothing: all men hope, and see their hopes | |
| Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew. | |
| But I … to hope that from a line like ours | |
| No horrid prodigy like this would spring, | 20 |
| Were just as though I hoped that from these old | |
| Confederates against the sovereign day, | |
| Children of older and yet older sires, | |
| Whose living coral berries dropped, as now | |
| On me, on many a baron’s surcoat once, | 25 |
| On many a beauty’s whimple—would proceed | |
| No poison-tree, to thrust, from hell its root, | |
| Hither and thither its strange snaky arms. | |
| Why came I here? What must I do? [A bell strikes.] A bell? | |
| Midnight! and ’tis at midnight … Ah, I catch | 30 |
| —Woods, river, plains, I catch your meaning now, | |
| And I obey you! Hist! This tree will serve. [He retires behind one of the trees. After a pause, enter MERTOUN cloaked as before. | |
| Mertoun. Not time! Beat out thy last voluptuous beat | |
| Of hope and fear, my heart! I thought the clock | |
| I’ the chapel struck as I was pushing through | 35 |
| The ferns. And so I shall no more see rise | |
| My love-star! Oh, no matter for the past! | |
| So much the more delicious task to watch | |
| Mildred revive: to pluck out, thorn by thorn, | |
| All traces of the rough forbidden path | 40 |
| My rash love lured her to! Each day must see | |
| Some fear of hers effaced, some hope renewed: | |
| Then there will be surprises, unforeseen | |
| Delights in store. I’ll not regret the past. [The light is placed above in the purple pane. | |
| And see, my signal rises, Mildred’s star! | 45 |
| I never saw it lovelier than now | |
| It rises for the last time. If it sets, | |
| ’Tis that the re-assuring sun may dawn. [As he prepares to ascend the last tree of the avenue, TRESHAM arrests his arm. Unhand me—peasant, by your grasp! Here’s gold. | |
| “Twas a mad freak of mine. I said I’d pluck | |
| A branch from the white-blossomed shrub beneath | 50 |
| The casement there. Take this, and hold your peace. | |
| Tresham. Into the moonlight yonder, come with me! | |
| Out of the shadow! | |
| Mertoun. I am armed, fool! | |
| Tresham. Yes, | 55 |
| Or no? You’ll come into the light, or no? | |
| My hand is on your throat—refuse!— | |
| Mertoun. That voice! | |
| Where have I heard … no—that was mild and slow. | |
| I’ll come with you. [They advance. | 60 |
| Tresham. You’re armed: that’s well. Declare | |
| Your name: who are you? | |
| Mertoun. (Tresham!—she is lost!) | |
| Tresham. Oh, silent? Do you know, you bear yourself | |
| Exactly as, in curious dreams I’ve had | 65 |
| How felons, this wild earth is full of, look | |
| When they’re detected, still your kind has looked! | |
| The bravo holds an assured countenance, | |
| The thief is voluble and plausible, | |
| But silently the slave of lust has crouched | 70 |
| When I have fancied it before a man. | |
| Your name! | |
| Mertoun. I do conjure Lord Tresham—ay, | |
| Kissing his foot, if so I might prevail— | |
| That he for his own sake forbear to ask | 75 |
| My name! As heaven’s above, his future weal | |
| Or woe depends upon my silence! Vain! | |
| I read your white inexorable face. | |
| Know me, Lord Tresham! [He throws off his disguises. | |
| Tresham. Mertoun! [After a pause.] Draw now! | 80 |
| Mertoun. Hear me | |
| But speak first! | |
| Tresham. Not one least word on your life! | |
| Be sure that I will strangle in your throat | |
| The least word that informs me how you live | 85 |
| And yet seem what you seem! No doubt ’twas you | |
| Taught Mildred still to keep that face and sin. | |
| We should join hands in frantic sympathy | |
| If you once taught me the unteachable, | |
| Explained how you can live so and so lie. | 90 |
| With God’s help I retain, despite my sense, | |
| The old belief—a life like yours is still | |
| Impossible. Now draw! | |
| Mertoun. Not for my sake, | |
| Do I entreat a hearing—for your sake, | 95 |
| And most, for her sake! | |
| Tresham. Ha, ha, what should I | |
| Know of your ways? A miscreant like yourself, | |
| How must one rouse his ire? A blow?—that’s pride | |
| No doubt, to him! One spurns him, does one not? | 100 |
| Or sets the foot upon his mouth, or spits | |
| Into his face! Come! Which, or all of these? | |
| Mertoun. ’Twixt him and me and Mildred, Heaven be judge! | |
| Can I avoid this? Have your will, my lord! [He draws and, after a few passes, falls. | |
| Tresham. You are not hurt? | 105 |
| Mertoun. You’ll hear me now! | |
| Tresham. But rise! | |
| Mertoun. Ah, Tresham, say I not “you’ll hear me now!” | |
| And what procures a man the right to speak | |
| In his defence before his fellow man, | 110 |
| But—I suppose—the thought that presently | |
| He may have leave to speak before his God | |
| His whole defence? | |
| Tresham. Not hurt? It cannot be! | |
| You made no effort to resist me. Where | 115 |
| Did my sword reach you? Why not have returned | |
| My thrusts? Hurt where? | |
| Mertoun. My lord— | |
| Tresham. How young he is! | |
| Mertoun. Lord Tresham, I am very young, and yet | 120 |
| I have entangled other lives with mine. | |
| Do let me speak, and do believe my speech! | |
| That when I die before you presently,— | |
| Tresham. Can you stay here till I return with help? | |
| Mertoun. Oh, stay by me! When I was less than boy | 125 |
| I did you grievous wrong and knew it not— | |
| Upon my honour, knew it not! Once known, | |
| I could not find what seemed a better way | |
| To right you than I took: my life—you feel | |
| How less than nothing were the giving you | 130 |
| The life you’ve taken! But I thought my way | |
| The better—only for your sake and hers: | |
| And as you have decided otherwise, | |
| Would I had an infinity of lives | |
| To offer you! Now say—instruct me—think! | 135 |
| Can you, from the brief minutes I have left, | |
| Eke out my reparation? Oh think—think! | |
| For I must wring a partial—dare I say, | |
| Forgiveness from you, ere I die? | |
| Tresham. I do | 140 |
| Forgive you. | |
| Mertoun. Wait and ponder that great word! | |
| Because, if you forgive me, I shall hope | |
| To speak to you of—Mildred! | |
| Tresham. Mertoun, haste | 145 |
| And anger have undone us. ’Tis not you | |
| Should tell me for a novelty you’re young, | |
| Thoughtless, unable to recall the past. | |
| Be but your pardon ample as my own! | |
| Mertoun. Ah, Tresham, that a sword-stroke and a drop | 150 |
| Of blood or two, should bring all this about! | |
| Why, ’twas my very fear of you, my love | |
| Of you—(what passion like a boy’s for one | |
| Like you?)—that ruined me! I dreamed of you— | |
| You, all accomplished, courted everywhere, | 155 |
| The scholar and the gentleman. I burned | |
| To knit myself to you: but I was young, | |
| And your surpassing reputation kept me | |
| So far aloof! Oh, wherefore all that love? | |
| With less of love, my glorious yesterday | 160 |
| Of praise and gentlest words and kindest looks, | |
| Had taken place perchance six months ago. | |
| Even now, how happy we had been! And yet | |
| I know the thought of this escaped you, Tresham! | |
| Let me look up into your face; I feel | 165 |
| ’Tis changed above me: yet my eyes are glazed. | |
| Where? where? [As he endeavours to raise himself, his eye catches the lamp. Ah, Mildred! What will Mildred do? | |
| Tresham, her life is bound up in the life | |
| That’s bleeding fast away! I’ll live—must live, | |
| There, if you’ll only turn me I shall live | 170 |
| And save her! Tresham—oh, had you but heard! | |
| Had you but heard! What right was yours to set | |
| The thoughtless foot upon her life and mine, | |
| And then say, as we perish, “Had I thought, | |
| All had gone otherwise”? We’ve sinned and die; | 175 |
| Never you sin, Lord Tresham! for you’ll die, | |
| And God will judge you. | |
| Tresham. Yes, be satisfied! | |
| That process is begun. | |
| Mertoun. And she sits there | 180 |
| Waiting for me! Now, say you this to her— | |
| You, not another—say, I saw him die | |
| As he breathed this, “I love her”—you don’t know | |
| What those three small words mean! Say, loving her | |
| Lowers me down the bloody slope to death | 185 |
| With memories … I speak to her, not you, | |
| Who had no pity, will have no remorse, | |
| Perchance intend her … Die along with me, | |
| Dear Mildred! ’tis so easy, and you’ll ’scape | |
| So much unkindness! Can I lie at rest, | 190 |
| With rude speech spoken to you, ruder deeds | |
| Done to you?—heartless men shall have my heart, | |
| And I tied down with grave-clothes and the worm, | |
| Aware, perhaps, of every blow—oh God!— | |
| Upon those lips—yet of no power to tear | 195 |
| The felon stripe by stripe! Die, Mildred! Leave | |
| Their honourable world to them! For God | |
| We’re good enough, though the world casts us out. [A whistle is heard. | |
| Tresham. Ho, Gerard! | |
| |
Enter GERARD, AUSTIN and GUENDOLEN, with lights | 200 |
| No one speak! You see what’s done! | |
| I cannot bear another voice. | |
| Mertoun. There’s light— | |
| Light all about me, and I move to it. | |
| Tresham, did I not tell you—did you not | 205 |
| Just promise to deliver words of mine | |
| To Mildred? | |
| Tresham. I will bear those words to her. | |
| Mertoun. Now? | |
| Tresham. Now. Lift you the body, and leave me | 210 |
| The head. [As they have half raised MERTOUN, he turns suddenly. | |
| Mertoun. I knew they turned me: turn me not from her! | |
| There! stay you! there! [Dies. | |
| Guendolen [after a pause]. Austin, remain you here | |
| With Thorold until Gerard comes with help: | 215 |
| Then lead him to his chamber. I must go | |
| To Mildred. | |
| Tresham. Guendolen, I hear each word | |
| You utter. Did you hear him bid me give | |
| His message? Did you hear my promise? I, | 220 |
| And only I, see Mildred. | |
| Guendolen. She will die. | |
| Tresham. Oh no, she will not die! I dare not hope | |
| She’ll die. What ground have you to think she’ll die? | |
| Why, Austin’s with you! | 225 |
| Austin. Had we but arrived | |
| Before you fought! | |
| Tresham. There was no fight at all. | |
| He let me slaughter him—the boy! I’ll trust | |
| The body there to you and Gerard—thus! | 230 |
| Now bear him on before me. | |
| Austin. Whither bear him? | |
| Tresham. Oh, to my chamber! When we meet there next, | |
| We shall be friends. [They bear out the body of MERTOUN. | |
| Will she die, Guendolen? | 235 |
| Guendolen. Where are you taking me? | |
| Tresham. He fell just here. | |
| Now answer me. Shall you in your whole life | |
| —You who have nought to do with Mertoun’s fate, | |
| Now you have seen his breast upon the turf, | 240 |
| Shall you e’er walk this way if you can help? | |
| When you and Austin wander arm-in-arm | |
| Through our ancestral grounds, will not a shade | |
| Be ever on the meadow and the waste— | |
| Another kind of shade than when the night | 245 |
| Shuts the woodside with all its whispers up? | |
| But will you ever so forget his breast | |
| As carelessly to cross this bloody turf | |
| Under the black yew avenue? That’s well! | |
| You turn your head: and I then?— | 250 |
| Guendolen. What is done | |
| Is done. My care is for the living. Thorold, | |
| Bear up against this burden: more remains | |
| To set the neck to! | |
| Tresham. Dear and ancient trees | 255 |
| My fathers planted, and I loved so well! | |
| What have I done that, like some fabled crime | |
| Of yore, lets loose a Fury leading thus | |
| Her miserable dance amidst you all? | |
| Oh, never more for me shall winds intone | 260 |
| With all your tops a vast antiphony, | |
| Demanding and responding in God’s praise! | |
| Hers ye are now, not mine! Farewell—farewell! | |
| |
