University of Virginia Library

ACT V.

SCENE I.

—A Room in Cranston's House.
Enter Cranston with a letter.
CRANSTON,
reads.

“I request that you will immediately take the necessary measures for making over the bulk of my property to my niece and nephew in equal divisions with a charge of an annuity to myself of four hundred pounds, being all that I now need.
Grace Aumerle.”

All that she needs? All now? Why now to need
Only so little? She must learn the truth,
Which yet she guesses not. This lord she marries,
I never thought him lavish. He might say
The gem he holds, being precious in itself,
Needs but the richer setting. There he is right.
He were right too, saying the opposite,
Letting the diamond sparkle in his hand,
Bare as a dew-drop. O! he loves her not.
It cannot be that any woman on earth
Having so drained the life-blood of one heart
Should take another. 'Tis not possible.
Why, the white freighted clouds, when overcharged
With pure unceasing tributes from the ground,
Break into tears and perish. I am thrust
(And by a word) from the clear top of effort
Down to the misty foot. Even here she wrote
Her name, and here my hurrying heart throws down
Its bitter habit of control, and drops
Into mere grief and worship.

(Enter a servant.)
SERVANT.
Sir, do you see
Strangers to-day?

CRANSTON.
Who asks?

SERVANT.
A gentleman.
(I lost the name.) I think I have seen him once
With Lady Grace Aumerle.

CRANSTON.
Let him come in.
(Exit servant.)
Again this nephew! Would she dropped her bounty
In worthier hands! (Enter Fitzerse.)
(Aside.)

O! this; I crave his pardon;
This is a decent person.

FITZERSE,
very much embarrassed.
I am come,—
Excuse me, Mr. Cranston.—I am come—

(Pauses.)
CRANSTON.
What can I do for you?

FITZERSE.
I am all unused
To these law matters.

CRANSTON.
Tell me but your fact,
And I'll supply your law.

FITZERSE.
I shall do so.
Briefly, I want a deed of settlement.

CRANSTON.
So.

FITZERSE,
giving a paper.
In these terms. Be pleased to look a moment
Upon this paper; 'tis set clearly down.

CRANSTON,
reads low to himself.
So, so, 'twere difficult to blunder here.
Simply, you give the lady all you have.

FITZERSE.
I pray you set a clasp on every phrase;
For law, they say, hath this disease, to grow
In cunning hands elastic, and let through
What it was knit to hold.

CRANSTON,
writing.
They so malign us,
Calling our scruples cavils. But I think
The sharpest lawyer strains not language more
For work, than other men for pleasure; yet
Their honour shall be held too high for doubts,
While ours is down to proverbs.

FITZERSE.
That may be;
I cannot tell; I think I am true myself.

CRANSTON,
writing.
So thinking you have touched the crown of thought.
What is the lady's name?

FITZERSE.
Familiar to you
When it was Wilmot.

CRANSTON.
Was! Your wife already?

FITZERSE.
Even so, since yesterday.

CRANSTON.
I think the lady
Is under age; her aunt should be her guardian:
I must conclude her privy to this deed?

FITZERSE.
O Sir, be satisfied. The Lady Grace,
Having dropped (I grieve to say it) her fair name
Into some tangle of unworthy talk,
Has come to think severely of the world;
And so—'tis said the case is common—leaves it.

CRANSTON.
Having done what?

FITZERSE.
You did not hear the tale?

CRANSTON.
I pray you tell it.

FITZERSE.
She is known for one
Who slights the general voice, and strives to look
Into the heart of all things, not concerned
With aspects and observances. She went—
He said 'twas on some charitable quest,
And doubtless 'twas so—but alone, at even,
Found by a troop champagned and clareted
(I'm sorry I was one), and nothing said
To bar a strange conclusion; 'tis no marvel
If they concluded strangely.

CRANSTON.
What?

FITZERSE.
Nay, pardon!
The meaning tells itself.

CRANSTON.
You have told me nothing.
Where went she?

FITZERSE.
To the lodgings of George Sandys.

CRANSTON.
She? by herself?

FITZERSE.
Even so. But you are moved.

CRANSTON.
I am the lady's lawyer, nothing more;
Bound merely in the course of business
To plead her cause; and, by the light of heaven,
I'll prove the man who doubts her by a look
A—blunderer!

(Controlling himself.)
FITZERSE.
'Twere well to prove it soon,
If proof be possible. The harm is done;
Hot words have bred cold looks, and I myself,
With most unwilling and compassionate hands,
Must shut the door, lest any thought assail
The lady whom I honour as my wife.

CRANSTON.
You?

FITZERSE.
I, you see, have no alternative,
For I beheld the scandal. I was sure,
By the slow curve of Lynton's angry lip,
When he so coldly drew her from the room,
While we stood blank, that he would break with her.
He could do nothing less.

CRANSTON.
Then he deserts her?

FITZERSE.
What could he do?

CRANSTON.
Unanswerable question!
Limit your risks by their foreseen results,
And so be safe. But never walk by faith
Into the danger of the vast unknown.
A man who did so once found a new world,
And was, not safe, but famous for all time.
'Twas hardly worth the pains.

FITZERSE.
I think it was not,
If I conceive you rightly.

CRANSTON.
What would you risk
For one you loved?

FITZERSE.
My life.

CRANSTON.
How, nothing more?

FITZERSE.
I do not know a greater thing than life.

CRANSTON.
Life is a means to compass noble ends;
Call it capacity for noble death
You have told all its value, which being lost,
You may spurn the empty winecup from your foot
And never stoop to lift it.

FITZERSE.
What you say
I understand not.

CRANSTON.
I am sure of that.
Well, Sir, I have your notes; I'll draw your deed
Before to-morrow.

FITZERSE.
I'm beholden to you.

(Exit.)
CRANSTON.
Am I the dust of the ground to bear this fire,
And neither blaze nor melt? How placidly
He painted that blind vengeance of the world
Against its purest! Things too mean for her foot
Passing their shameful sentences upon her!
She, wistful, white, astonished, facing them,
Taking the stings into her delicate breast,
Hiding them with proud hands, and dying of them,
As virgin-martyrs die of contumely!
How was it, O my love, that thou shouldst weep
And I not know it? Was there any check
In that continuous current of my thoughts
Which sets to thee? I am reproached for it,
And scorn myself, who grieve not that thy grief
Hath bowed thee to the level of my hope.
Rise now, strong heart, and sweep me to her feet,
Pour there the secret which I thought to keep
A silence, and a burden of despair
Across the desert uncomplaining grave.

(Exit.)

SCENE II.—Lady Grace's Library.

Lady Grace. A woman in the dress of a Sister of Mercy.
LADY GRACE.
You have no vows?

SISTER.
We have no need of vows;
We work but for the love of what we do
And Him for whom we do it.

LADY GRACE.
And if a weak heart comes to work with you,
Not only for the love of what you do,
But for the fear and pain of what it leaves,
You will not spurn such service?

SISTER.
Rather prize it.
We wish to be such havens from the world
That all the troubled hearts may flock to us.

LADY GRACE.
Well, then, to-morrow.

SISTER.
You have said “to-morrow”
Since first we spoke of this. I would not urge you,
Yet, trust me, prefaces to books or deeds
Are still the hardest reading.

LADY GRACE.
Give me time
To grieve that I have nothing left to grieve for,
To make my gentle parting, not with hopes,
With disappointments that once looked like hopes,
So sober in their dawn one might have thought
Even time would pity them. I had put by
The burning dream of bliss; I did but ask
To walk in patient honour to my grave,
Doing some good, helping some richer lives,
Wearing a little love about my heart,
Winning all trust, crowned with a stainless name.
Meek wishes, but not one is granted me!
Not one! not one!

SISTER.
You shall find all with us.
These pure ambitions grow not in the world,
Or only bud to perish; but our shade
Fosters the tenderest germ.

LADY GRACE.
I'll try to think so.
(Exit Sister.)
O! how much better had I cast myself
Under the footstool of the hope I scorned
And wrung a moment's blessing! I am a fool
To think it could have been! When I was born,
“Not to be loved” was written on my brow.
I know there are such dooms, to stray through life
With outstretched hands that miss, but do not lose,
Because they never found. Therefore I yield,
Having no cause to fight for; like a child
Who plucks a hollow fruit and flings it by,—
Not satiate, not considerate, not resigned,
But merely baffled.

(Enter Cranston.)
LADY GRACE,
aside.
O! this yet was wanting.
Be proud, my heart, be proud.

CRANSTON.
Shall I have pardon
For this intrusion?

LADY GRACE.
I commend your zeal,
Although I asked it not. You have the deed?

CRANSTON.
Here, Madam.
(Gives a paper. She takes it to a table and is about to sign without reading it.)
Yet consider what you do.
That little stroke that signs away your wealth
You may repent too late. Gold can do much;
'Tis the condition of a thousand joys,
An arm, a wing, a weapon; spurn it not,
Till you consider.

LADY GRACE.
I have well considered.

(Signs.)
CRANSTON.
You have done it.

LADY GRACE,
turning to him.
There's a rapture in your voice
Tunes not with warning words. Why are you glad?

CRANSTON.
O! I am glad too soon. The captive shouts
When his chain breaks; but, finding a void home,
Sighs for the senseless walls which hid despair,
And so kept hope alive.

LADY GRACE.
Speak calmly to me;
I am not strong to-day.

CRANSTON.
Be weak. I need
The courage of your weakness. You must hear
A tale. I'll tell it coldly, as a steward
Gives up his reckoning. When your husband died
He thus provided, if you wed again
(You shrink, but you may do it), half your wealth
Goes to your niece and nephew; all the rest
To him you wed, who strips your power away
After you have enriched him with your heart.
Ungracious happiness! to force an alms
From one who gives a life. This strange decree,
Not told till now (you wonder with your eyes),
Was trusted to the keeping of a man
Who—listen to me, look at me—who loved you
With a slave's agony, seared into silence,
Burnt on the lips and weighted on the soul.
He had no right to lift his love to you,
Save in the very strength whereby it soared
Out of its deeps to your unfooted height,
There waiting till a glance shall hurl it down.
A desperate dumb love, which was to die
Before it spoke, which may now slay itself
With its first word (it is free, it is at your feet)—
Speak, though you doom it!

LADY GRACE.
O! have pity on me,
And let me go.

CRANSTON.
Speak first!

LADY GRACE.
I am not unworthy
(I cannot let you think so). What I have done
I would do again, and never need to kneel
For pardon at the judgment-seat within.
Think of me with such honour as you can;
Think only you have gifted with your love
The most unhappy woman in the world,
Who, knowing that a stain is on her name,
Has lost the right to take it.

CRANSTON.
Is that all?
If any lip but yours profaned your name,
I'd say it was a lie.

LADY GRACE.
But this is true.

CRANSTON.
If, by pure condescension of your virtue,
You have done something rash against yourself,
Or dangerously noble to another,
What is it to the world? To me it is only
One reason more for loving you.

LADY GRACE.
You know not—

CRANSTON.
Peace! I know all.

LADY GRACE.
And love me still?

CRANSTON.
You ask it!

LADY GRACE,
giving him her hands.
Do with me as you will, for I am yours;
Forgive me all my faults; deceive me not.
I think I never won a heart till now,
And am afraid to touch it. I must weep,
Because there is no virtue in myself
Whereby to hold you. Are you sure you love me?
O! say it not, unless you are so sure
That what you love not, being found in me,
Shall draw you closer.

CRANSTON.
Teach me by what oath
I may convince you.

LADY GRACE.
I am credulous
As a new convert, who expects his creed
To save him by itself. O! if a cloud,
The least faint, phantom mist of possible change,
Lurk on the far horizon, leave me now,
Before I make surrender of my life,
For I am on the brink of such a deep
That if I pass it there is no return.
I am no child, to roam through coming time
Plucking new blossoms; on my woman's heart
I hold but one, the first, and if it fades,
Hope dies for ever.

CRANSTON.
All the doubts you breathe
Are musical with undertones of love,
To certify my soul that I am blest;
And yet I must be trusted,—there's no bond
Between us till you trust me.

LADY GRACE.
Look not grave,
I have no doubts left.

CRANSTON.
Then must I teach you next
(Being so apt) that glory in yourself
Which you perceive not. I'll not teach it you!
For if in any picture of my words
You find faint reflex of your light, and learn
To what a depth you stoop, you might resume
Your solitude, and I should pass from you
Like one born blind who, having seen a moment,
Goes back into his vision-haunted darkness,
Knowing what he has lost.

LADY GRACE.
You shall not speak
Of stooping.

CRANSTON.
But I must.

LADY GRACE.
Is it because
You work? Alas, it is not work that makes
The misery and meanness of the world;
'Tis sloth, or self, or scorn, or cowardice,
Growths on all levels. I have lived with such,
And turn from them to you as if I went
From a sick-room into a mountain wind
Full of fresh heather. Let me be your clerk,
And learn your mysteries. I can write fairly,
For hours, unwearied.

CRANSTON.
You would find my work
Not unconcerned with misery and meanness.

LADY GRACE.
Why, so much greater is your glory, love,
To do it nobly.

CRANSTON.
If a man die honest,
He does much, having lived. But we'll not talk
Of anything but love. I'll prove to you
How far you lag behind me.

LADY GRACE.
If you can,
You work a miracle. I am afraid
To say how soon I loved you.

CRANSTON.
Did you love me
Twelve years ago?

LADY GRACE.
I did not know you then.

CRANSTON.
Forgetful heart! In those prophetic days,
When first the tender colour breaks the sheath
Before we know what shape the flower shall bear,
I was beside you. Think upon the boy
Who lured you from the schoolroom to the woods,
Bore you through streams and throned you upon banks,
Fenced unfamiliar fears away from you,
Rifled all heights and waters of their jewels
To make your lap their treasury,—

LADY GRACE.
I am confused
With sweet remembrances. Were you that boy?

CRANSTON.
Ay, and I loved you then.

LADY GRACE.
You give me back
Some of the secret honour that I lost
When my heart sprang to meet you.

(Enter Sir George Sandys with his arm in a sling.)
CRANSTON.
How! You dare
To blot this presence!

SIR GEORGE.
Pardon me,—I come
To make our blunders good. I was away,
And heard but yesterday how all has chanced;
(To Lady Grace.)
I left the ball before I saw your face,
Ashamed (I own it) of your needless shame;
But I have smoothed it now. I have told the truth,
And all are satisfied.

LADY GRACE.
You broke your word!
I had your promise—

SIR GEORGE.
Nay, most eager lady,
Will nothing chill you? Rosa's fame is safe,
For she spoke first; her husband wrung it from her
In some encounter of affection. Then
'Tis said we fought,—but I forget these trifles—
Stay, I was hit,—that proves it. To be brief,
I pledged my word to spread the truth abroad,
And told it wisely,—it has slipped aside
Out of the grasp and gossip of the time
As a girl's frolic pardoned. Good Fitzerse,
In his first simpleness of love, forgives
Whatever Rosa does,—he was only wroth
Till he was sure she did it; now, he says
(O! you should hear him!), all have done as much,
But only Rosa has the nobleness
To own her young adventures. It is pretty
To see them, but she might have spoken sooner,
And spared us all this coil.

LADY GRACE.
Us! Pray you, keep
Our names asunder.

SIR GEORGE,
shrugging his shoulders.
I am blamed for all.
Well, I'm a contrite sinner!

(Enter Lord Lynton, Mrs. Vane, Emma Vane, Fitzerse, and Rosa.—Sir George draws back.)
ROSA,
running up to Lady Grace.
Aunt, I'm happy!
I know you will forgive me. If you do not,
I am so happy I'll wait patiently
Until you do.

(Kisses her.)
FITZERSE.
We must be both your debtors,
Both grieving for your wrong.

ROSA.
And, Aunt, indeed
You must be happy, too. This gentleman
(showing Lord Lynton)
Knows all.
(Aside to Lord Lynton.)
Why are you dumb? (Aloud.)
I've told him all;
And, being married, I may bring him to you,
And call myself your chaperon for the nonce.

LORD LYNTON,
embarrassed.
I am ashamed that I have doubted you.

LADY GRACE.
I think I am ashamed to face you all;
You have my thanks, and I forget all wrongs,
For I too have been busy for myself
With happiness.

(Gives her hand to Cranston; they all stand amazed.)
SIR GEORGE,
advancing.
Her lawyer,—nothing more!

Curtain falls.