University of Virginia Library

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.)