University of Virginia Library

Honoria, by compliment the queen,
Would have been royal anywhere, and apart
With her distinction in a multitude
Or on a throne. Whether a queen or not,
And wilfully or not, she would have drawn
Around herself invisibly a circle
For none to cross without a smile or sign
From her to say they might. If there was joy
Or glory in this for her, there was tonight
No shining record in her eyes of either;
Nor in her face, where time had faintly won
A negligible skirmish with her beauty,
Was happiness to spare. Yet everything
That other women would have suffered for,
And many enough would ardently have sold
Salvation and intelligence to possess,
Was in appearance hers. So has it been
Since envy, like a foundling, hated first
Its name, and sighed because it had no other;
Though envy, gazing in a window there
Tonight, and seeing well, might have seen less
Worth stealing there than in a toiler's cottage
Where no queens ever came. Honoria
Might have been happier had she never felt
The touch of hidden fingers everywhere,
On everything, and sometimes all but seen them.
For they were there, they were all over the house;
They followed her unseen wherever she went,
And stayed with her unseen wherever she was,
As there now by the firelight where she sat
Alone, and waited for she said not what.
Surely for nothing new. The massive wealth
Of house and home was armor too secure
For change to shake or pierce. Or, were those hands
That she felt everywhere on everything
Blasting already with unseen decay
Walls, roofs, and furniture, and all there was
For her to feel and see and never to know.
She watched the flame and wondered why it was
That she was always waiting, and for what.
The king would soon be coming down the stairs
To praise her and to worship her discreetly,
And probably to say again to her
That time, whenever he stole a year from her,
Replaced it with another loveliness
Fairer than youth—all which would have been true,
And would have been a comfort undenied,
If there were not those hands always at work
Somewhere. If she could see what they were doing,
Or say more certainly what hands they were,
Doom, when it came, would be endurable,
And understandable, as death would be.
The world outside, and with abundant reason,
Would say she was the last of things alive
To play with death, or make a picture of it;
And many would see themselves, and with more reason,
Already pictured. The queen considered that;
And hearing the king coming down the stairs,
Arranged a smile. The king deserved a smile,
And there was always one awaiting him.

Jasper the first, King Jasper generally,
By compliment also—and by some right,
Which all might not acknowledge as divine—
Came softly in to where the queen sat waiting
For more than Jasper. Had she told him that,
And had she told him of those unseen hands,
He would have laughed at her and kissed her twice
Instead of once—which now, if not enough,
Was all that was expected. So she smiled
At him obediently and beautifully,
And the king smiled. He was a small, tight man,
With eyes that should have seen you in the dark,
And a face moulded hard and handsomely
To a deceiving candor—a face made
For men to study twice, and one for women,
If able, to forget. It was a face
Of amiable deceits and pleasant dangers,
And was withal—or would be for as long
As there were on it no annoyances—
An unoffending and a patient face.
“You may throw billiard balls or bricks at it,
And they will leave no mark,” one citizen
Had said; and several had agreed with him.
The queen would have heard nothing to resent
Had she heard that; and those invisible hands,
For ever at work, might have let something fall
That was not built to fall. If one thing fell,
She had long fancied, always with a shiver,
That all would follow. She was thinking now
Of that; and while she thought of it, she smiled
At the king watching her across the hearth
With piercing gentleness that never changed,
Or never except infrequently to pierce
Deliberately, that she might not forget
Who ruled and answered only his own questions
Of what a king had mostly on his mind
When he was silent or was not at home.
Without those eyes that were his heritage,
He might not have been king.

“And so, my dear,”
The king said, “we may count the coming down
Of one more night on us, and on the chimneys—
For now we cannot see them; and that means
That we are one day older. If your face
Were the one calendar available,
There would be only as many days and nights
As we might live; for there would be no years.
You are miraculous.”

“Oh no,” she said.
“Your chimneys are the miracle. Without them,
I might have one face, or I might have two;
Or I might have no face. It wouldn't matter.
Your chimneys are the landmark of your power.
Without them, I know best what I should be.
Why do you wait so long? I said all that
Only to make you say it was not so.”
She laughed, and had a momentary triumph
To play with.

“You're the more miraculous,
The longer you're alive. So make the most
Of that before I swear I never said it.
But all the same, and not for the first time,
I'm wishing that your eyes were finding more
For mine to share with them, and less that's hidden.
God gave you eyes to make the world affirm
That you are not supremely among women
The most unfortunate or disconsolate.
I think so, but I like your saying so;
And that was why I waited. I'm no worse
Than when you married me; and you said then
That I was wonderful. I see no change,
Unless we say I'm older. As for you,
Astronomy and addition are both liars
When they say you are fifty. You are thirty.
If there are more years in your doubts tonight
Than thirty, they are there and nowhere else.
Who puts them there? Or what? For all I know
It's that incalculable only son
Of ours. What are we going to make of him?
Answer me that, and I'll go on my knees
To you, and make you blind with diamonds.”

“Jasper, if diamonds would make me blind
In one direction, or in one respect,
I might be on my knees, imploring you
For baskets of them. No, it is not our son,
Although I grant you there's a problem in him.
What shall we make of him, you ask? I ask,
What shall he make of us? If you are strong,
And the world says you are, he may be stronger,
And with a wilder strength. He is still young,
And so must have his visions. If you fear
He sees today too far beyond your chimneys,
Why be alarmed? Be quiet, and let him grow.
The chimneys are still there.”

“Thank God they are.
And in a proper course of time and reason
He may discover them and consider them
As more than hollow trees that are on fire—
Down where the dragon lives. His filial pride
Sees in what others have called supremacy
A smart abstraction that he calls a dragon.
Meanwhile his occupation is a woman
He calls his wife. She is too free and holy,
Or so he says, to let herself be bound
Or tangled in the flimsy nets or threads
Of church or state. So far as I'm informed,
Or have inferred, she seems to be a sort
Of charming and transfigured wasp, equipped
To sting the mightiest spiders of convention
And fly away from them as free as ever.
In my son's place—well, well, I'd rather not say.
She has enraptured him past intercession,
And I've a notion how—for I have seen her;
And you, this evening, if you will, may gauge her
With all your motherly judgment and affection.
For better or worse, you may as well accept her;
For I'm afraid you must, or lose your son.
If she is false, and I am sure she isn't,
He'll scorch himself and be a little wiser,
And will not be the first. If you see better
Than I see, let me share with you your picture
Of his improvement and his transformation.
He needed both, if ever youth needed sight;
And you, my dear, may not have seen, as I have,
New terrors that have overtaken us.
You feel them, but you do not know their nature.”

“I know, though mercifully I'm a novice,
The nature of an insult. If my son
Tells me to suffer, I suppose I must.
And your new terrors, Jasper, are not new.”

“Some of them are,” the king said; “and she is—
Although I should have known, and so been ready
For any such apparition as might arrive,
Early, or later, as I feared—or knew.
You cannot know, as I do, what the years
Are bringing home, but you are soon to learn.
Never mind, now. I'll sit here and see—you;
And with a son's eye try to see the stranger.
Why must you women, you pernicious ribs,
Make havoc always of awakening man?
I've not forgotten what you made of me,
After one sight of you. And I'm aware
That this fantastic and elusive sprout
Of ours would hear from us no thwarting sort
Of counsel. If I told him, as a father,
What he must do, he'd find, without a pause,
A way to make me scan with a new care
The size of my experience. If assurance
And aimlessness are strength, your hero has it.
I think it must have been your contribution
To his exuberance. It was never mine.”

“Am I then so exuberant?” she asked.
“I might recall innumerable names
Of yours for me, but none would have that word.
Am I exuberant?”

“No, you are not—tonight.
The distance here between us is the same
As always, yet you seem so not quite here
That I'm uncertain that I'm not astray
In someone else's house, and you a stranger.
Say it's a fancy; for I'm one of those
Who thrive indifferently on mysteries.
Say it is fancy. Then say what it was
That set my fancy ranging. For you know,
My dear, and there is no-one else to tell me.
I have not watched and measured men so long
That I have not remembered there are women.
One woman I've remembered so intensely
That I may not have told her—which is wrong,
And may for many a man be perilous.
My sense of having you has like as not
Misled me, as it has a million others,
To saying not enough. If that's the matter,
Scratch me and see how instantly I bleed.
You must have an unseen sufficiency
Of little knives; and I'm of the elected
In having never felt them. Won't you tell me,
And with no slaughter, what it is you see,
Or would see if you might? If it's a ghost,
I'm chilled with interest. I have never seen one.
A ghost in a new house where none has died
Is out of order.”

“And why so? Some houses,
Newer than this, may well be full of them.”

The king looked hard at his Honoria
Before he laughed. “And have you seen one here?
If not, you may have heard him; and if so,
You should have been asleep. Nights are alive
With noises if you lie and listen for them.”

“No, Jasper, I've not seen him, nor yet heard him;
And maybe only my imagination
Has let me tell myself that I have felt him.
Not only in the night; for there are ghosts,
I fancy, at all hours. When I'm alone,
By day or night, I feel mysterious hands
Doing a silent work of slow destruction.
I feel them here; and if I went down there,
And waited, I might feel them in the chimneys.
Someone is here at work, or more than one,
With hands that I shall be afraid to know
So long as they are silent and unseen.
Have you an enemy, or a friend, who died,
And might return to you to be unwelcome?”

“What thread of language is it you are spinning
As if you mean to weave a shroud of it
For all that we have been—for all we are?
What have I done so deadly different
Of late that I remain a stranger to it?
If you are too much alone when I'm away,
God knows it is your choice. I should have said,
If questioned, it was a clever way of yours
Of staying alive sometimes. But if it serves you
Only as a new way of seeing demons,
I recommend activity and fatigue—
And sleep.”

She smiled. “It is your memory now
That sleeps. I never told you that I saw them.
I told you that I felt them.”

“I've a doubt,
My dear, if you've an inkling of what ails you.
World-weary nerves, I'll wager. If you say so,
We'll go to sea and sail around the world,
With freedom and free air for company.
There's nothing for you to ask that I'll refuse,
If it will change those anxious eyes of yours
That feel, but cannot see.”

Again she smiled:
“No, Jasper. You are kind; you always were—
To me. But we might sail ten thousand miles
Away from here, and I should feel those hands,
Always invisible, always at work.”
“God help us, then,” the king said; and he sat
Like a still image, gazing solemnly
At a slow-burning log that smoked and hissed
And whispered. And the thing was listening.

Without a motion, or a glance at her
Who sat there silently, “And you,” he said,
“Are not alone permitted or condemned
To know there are somewhere some hands at work
That may destroy us if we live too long.
I feel them, as you do; but there's with me
A difference. Mine are not those of a ghost.”

“I know them; and I know whose hands they are,
Jasper; and I have known for a long time.”

With a slow sigh that said less of relief
Than of lost hope restored, he studied her
With eyes that held a warmer confidence
Than had for long been hers to find in them.
A smile of an inquiring gratitude
Softened them strangely while he sighed again,
Contentedly almost. “Well, if you know them,
You know there's nothing that is here for always.
There may be a long madness on the way
To shatter a mad world that may deserve it.
I cannot answer if you ask me now
To tell you what it is those hands are doing.
Only remember, and be satisfied,
That you may fear no ghost. Only God knows
How gladly I'd exchange for a ghost's hands
The living and invincible hands I feel
All around me. For I feel them, and I see them;
And you might, if you knew them as I know them.”
The queen, with a monotony unaltered
And with no smile, said, “Jasper, I am sorry.
But mine are a ghost's hands, if yours are not.
I know your purpose, and I know those hands
Down there, and everywhere, that may have power
To crush us. If they do, I shall not care—
So long as I'm permitted not to touch them.
No, mine are the cold hands of an old ghost
That will not rest unfelt. But for the while
He stays invisible, we'll not mention him.
Let us imagine that he never was,
And say no more of him.”

They said no more.
He sat there, with the face of a man baffled,
And found in hers no answer. Silently
They sat alone, the king and queen together;
And silently they turned, hearing at last
A new sound, and a murmur of young voices.