University of Virginia Library

ACT III.

Scene I.—A Room in Grey's House, with a large Window opening to the Garden.

Grey—Vernon.
GREY
I tell you, he forgets her, which is worse
Than scorning. Not a nerve replies to her;
She passes, and he stirs not; she departs—
He, when his meditation is complete,
Wonders a little why she went away
For her mute neighbourhood disturbed him not;
She questions him, and then he answers her
Right gently, as becomes a gentleman,
And tells her anything she wants to know,
And is content with anything she says.
Pshaw, man, I know what Love is! If he loved her,
He would be full of challenges and claims,
Unreasoning angers, desperate submissions,
Incessant sense of her through all the moods,
Like one voice speaking twenty languages,
Her presence tumult, her withdrawal pain,
Herself his breath of life.

VERNON
Is there, perchance,
Some difference of nature? Love is not
The same for all—one temper feeds on sleep,
And one on torture. He is sure of her
As she of him.

GREY
Ah! there's her placid fault!
If we could prick her with a fear, perchance
She might rise up and conquer him.

VERNON
O, sir,
You do not read her perfectly. Her love,
Like that diviner habit which priests teach,
Stands upon faith, and if the basement shakes
The temple falls, and all that dwells therein,
The sweet life, which is nothing else but love,
Is crushed—she dies of doubt!

GREY
How young you are!
You turn her to an Idyl. Such a theme
Must needs be read through pre-historic mists
To make it credible. To-day, Elaine,
After her little scrape with Lancelot,
Would give up croquet for a month or two
And then be Mrs. Galahad.

VERNON
I think
There might be mockers too at Camelot,
Who from the white appeal of that dead face
Turned volubly, and talked about the lungs.
We too shall find our poet—far enough
To see the vast proportions of the Time
And let the scratches on the surface pass.
We too shall find our poet; when he comes
He will forget the scoffers. Pardon me.

GREY
He must be more than poet to forget
The scoffs that rob him of his wreath.

VERNON
But say
You have read Raymond's heart aright (though hers
Is undecyphered), would you break the bond
For this?

GREY
Nay rather, seal and strengthen it;
I'd marry them to-morrow if I could!
These moderations suit from man to wife,
But, being thus forestalled, and in the time
When greater heat is natural, I fear
Some check we cannot master. Make them one,
(I would they were!) and he shall be content,
And new experience, not like other men's,
May teach him that his dreams were less than truth.

VERNON
There's danger in such haste.

GREY
But in delay
There is destruction. I have thought of all—
We'll have our wedding in a week. What now?
I think they have been plighted long enough,
He knows her from a child; there's not a thread
Of tangling etiquette to hold them back;
And, Vernon, think what she has been to him!
Through all his helpless unrewarding years
The patience of her heart surrounded him
As with an angel's presence—will you say
She has not earned him? As he is my son,
It angers me!

VERNON
But if he love her not,
If there be not a seed of love, you doom her
To a most barren future. You have seen
That he is frank with me. Say, shall I sound him
And tell you what he feels!

GREY
I charge you, no.
Unsounded depths may smother hosts of proof
Till some rash hand reveals their vacancy;
Your question, aptly framed, compels reply,
And the loose thought, being gathered into words,
Grows to a certain fact. Let him alone.
'Tis a maid's privilege to fix the day
Whereon she gives her fretful freedom up.
I'll make her speak—and for mere courtesy
He must respond; and so you see we snare him
For his own good.

VERNON
May you be right!

GREY
Amen!
Though your voice tolls it like an epitaph.
Look where our lovers come.

[Raymond and Hope are seen through the window.
VERNON
As slow of foot
As if they feared their goal.

GREY
For shame! For shame!
They linger in the sweetness of their way
As lovers should. See, she holds up a flower;
Now, this looks well! He takes it. I'm afraid
He is but telling her the Latin name!
Who wants intelligence in making love?
They don't know how to do it! 'Tis enough
To sting the patientest of human souls
Into mere frenzy!

VERNON
Even a married man
Might take a violet from his wife's white hand,
Without botanic prelude!

GREY
You are set
To choose the worst interpreting.

VERNON
Not so;
I do but follow yours.

GREY
Well, I have done.
I'll not disturb the lesson.

[Exit Grey.
VERNON
I must take
My news to Avice. I perceive she's right,
And we must break this knot by any means
So that 'tis broken. I that stand between
Two confidences, screening each from each,
Should see my way the clearest.

[Exit Vernon. (Scene changes to the Garden.)

Scene II.

Raymond—Hope.
RAYMOND
To this place
You have been wont to lead me. Let us sit,
And try if such familiar atmosphere
Can wake the heart of that forgotten man
Whom I once was.

[He sits down.
HOPE
Nay love, forget him still;
I'd grudge you profitable pain, and you
Whose education has been only pain
Can need no sobering touch. Take with both hands
The riches of your joy!

[She sits down on the bank beneath him.
RAYMOND
Were you thus low
Before?

HOPE
Ay, so my shoulder for your hand
Was ready when you rose.

RAYMOND
Good Hope! Good helper!
Were I blind now, I'd prize your ready love
A thousand times more dearly than I did.
I never fathomed it.

HOPE
Not on such terms
Would I be loved. If you could hate me now
I would not buy your heart at such a price
Though I should die without it.

RAYMOND
I am sure
You would not. Selfless and serene, you walk
Among the passions; 'tis the privilege
Of serving others, that your proper pangs
Remain unfelt.

HOPE
A better privilege
Is mine to-day; the joy of your new life;
Less yours, I think, than mine, and wholly mine
Because I know it safely yours. Look round!
Is this the very landscape that you dreamed
When my words painted it?

RAYMOND
I cannot tell.

HOPE
Have you forgotten?

RAYMOND
Yes, I have forgotten.
O child, there are no landscapes on my soul!
My foot is on the threshold of the world,
An army of innumerable hopes,
Till now held fiercely back—baffled, starved, crushed—
Are rushing through the land as conquerors,
With every citadel unlocked before them,
And all the happy pastures free for them,
And all the festive maidens bringing gifts.
Not here, not now, not thus, I crown myself;
No dreamer I, to dawdle through the woods,
No creeping sage to scan the grains of sand
Or count the useless threads upon a flower:
I must go forth among the minds, and rule
By force and courage in that grander realm;
My labour and my triumph are with men.

HOPE
You seem a Prince from some old fairy tale
Kept among shepherds, coming up at last
To take his true inheritance and reign.
I hunger for your glory. Well I knew
In that near Past which seems so very far
How strong the captive spirit was; but then
I dared not dream of coming liberty,
As by a death-bed any thought of health
Is shunned as an intolerable pang;
Now, that which could not be conceived, is come,
'Twill be familiar in a week. You talk
Of ruling men—you will behold and know
How much of evil and of grief there is
Wrought among men, which men can take away,
And you will be a soldier in the host
Whose leaders are invisible. I too
Can help, if you will teach me; keeping bright
Your armour which the common air may rust
By service of my prayers, tending your wounds
(Though I would have you scatheless), watching you,
Revering, and remembering all the while
Shadows that do but make the light more plain.
Was ever woman in the world so blest? [While she is speaking Avice passes slowly across the lawn behind them. Raymond's attention is instantly drawn away, and he follows her with his eyes.

Have you a place for me?

RAYMOND
(absently)
True—so you said.

HOPE
How, love?

RAYMOND
Nay, pardon me, I meant—I will—
Your words are lovely as yourself, and true
As I would have them. I forgot a book
In yonder thicket where I walked alone
Before you joined me; I must fetch it in
Lest the dew spoil it.

[Exit Raymond.
HOPE
What a churl am I
If my unnatural sovereignty which rose
Out of his helplessness, being now reduced
To its due limits, I grow sensitive;
I hate myself for thinking of myself—
I'll make my heart more strong. It is the strain
Of these past anxious days that changes me,
The shock of joy—I know not why I weep.

[Exit Hope.

Scene III.

Enter Avice followed by Raymond.
AVICE
O, I have heard too much!

RAYMOND
You must hear more—
I love you!

AVICE
Cease!

RAYMOND
I cannot cease to love,
Nor you to credit what you knew before;
Silence avails us not. You know the truth
And will not hear me tell it. I, who doubt
Yet hope, would die to hear you say the words.
Are you not mine? Confess it!

AVICE
(turning away)
Think on Hope.

RAYMOND
You should have named her sooner, ere you wove
The toils I cannot break.

AVICE
Not I! not I
I did not dream of this—I lie—I knew it!
O vile, vile, vile!

RAYMOND
You shall not scorn yourself,
No tongue shall touch the honour of my queen.

AVICE
(assuming a haughty air)
You are too hasty, sir. Sir, you mistake;
I love you not.

[She turns to go; he catches her hands and detains her.
RAYMOND
Look in my face and say it!

(A pause.)
AVICE
(gradually yielding)
I—love—you.

[Hides her face.
RAYMOND
Triumph! Say it twenty times
And twenty times again; it shall be fresh
As the first touch of light before the dawn,
Or the first prick of colour in the bud,
Or the first glance of wonder, which revealed
There was an Avice for me in the world.
For me! For me!

AVICE
I do perceive my heart
Was yours before I knew it.

RAYMOND
It was made
Only to beat for me. Do you now know it,
Or must I teach you how to love me more
By showing all the things I'll do for you?
You shall be such a queen as knights of old
Contended for, making their glory hers;
What fame I win shall be your coronal,
And your least impulse, ere you give it words
Shall be fulfilled, because my heart forestalled it.
Your meanest day shall be a festival,
And wayside babes shall whisper where you pass
There goes the fairest woman in the world
With him who won her.

AVICE
Will it cease again
This music of my dreams? Will the dawn come
And bring the bitter silence, which so oft
Has mocked my listening heart?

RAYMOND
So you reveal
An unsuspected world, to make it mine
With the first glimpse.

AVICE
I have betrayed myself
More than I should. Be kind and let me go!
You must forget what I with shame remember;
I knew not what I said.

RAYMOND
For that, your speech
Is all the sweeter.

AVICE
O, we do but snatch
One moment from the cruel coming grasp
Which gathers up our lives. It is in vain!
You are not free to love me.

RAYMOND
I were then
A slave indeed. I am but one who slept
While some light hand wove webs of gossamer
About him; say that in that sleep he died
The gossamer had seemed as strong as steel;
But lo! he wakes, and all is brushed away
With his first motion into life.

AVICE
Alas!
I hear you, but I cannot understand.

RAYMOND
Trust me, I am not cruel. She shall be
The sister of our hearts, no less, no more;
There is no passion in her gentle soul,
A little wonder, and a little pain,
(Which I would spare her if 'twere possible)
Will mark our easy severance, till she takes
That natural and familiar sisterhood
Which is her sole reality of love;
For all beyond, we blundered; now we know
The truth, 'twere sin to mask it. In a month
Her tranquil happiness shall mirror ours
In its own crystal silence.

AVICE
May it prove so!
But I am full of fears. What is your purpose?

RAYMOND
To wed you.

AVICE
Aye, but how to part from her?

RAYMOND
Devise the manner with your sharper wit,
I do but grasp the fact.

AVICE
Thus then I take
The moment's swift suggestion. Vernon loves her
With such a needy patience as besets
A climber's walk for many a weary mile,
And takes, content, a halfpenny at last,
Wrung, but not given.

RAYMOND
So! I'm sorry for him.

AVICE
Nay, nay, he shall achieve his recompense.

RAYMOND
If that be all our ground for confidence
We had best teach ourselves to say goodbye;
Think of some better way.

AVICE
You have not heard me.
A jealous heart sees with a hundred eyes
And he divines you truly, that your love
Shrinks far below that heaven-encompassed height
Whereon he sets her claims. I can so move him
That he shall warn her like a trusty friend,
Not craving any guerdon for himself
Which might awake her doubt, but generously,
Knowing the fact, braving the present pang
To bar worse issues; so the work begun
Grows of itself—the crack that lets in truth
Fills all the house with light.

RAYMOND
The plan is good.
So—Vernon loves her,—and mistrusts my love.

AVICE
Why do you ponder it?

RAYMOND
An hour ago
He put me through my questions. I profess
With that weak appetite for sympathy
Which sometimes pricks the strongest, I was near
To showing him my heart.

AVICE
I pray you, hide it.
He must not think you have a thought for me.

RAYMOND
There seems a mighty riddle in this man!
Must I believe he has a double heart,
One face to watch for Hope, and one for you,
Both bringing me to judgment?

AVICE
You are angry.

RAYMOND
Faith, not at all: I am inquisitive,
I wait instruction. Wherefore screen our love
So carefully from Vernon? Will it choke him
If he but breathe't in passing?

AVICE
For my sake!

RAYMOND
So! For your sake! I wait instruction still.

AVICE
You are not kind; you should perceive, untold,
Since I am yours, all ills that threaten me;
I am not as a daughter in this house,
Not shielded, not encouraged, not the theme
Of sweet interpretations, which reflect
Light on my darkest shadows—I must stand
On only my poor self. If, ere you claim me,
One faint suspicion touch me, I am lost;
I die to think of it.

RAYMOND
But if a breath
Should pass you roughly, causing but a blush,
I toss our paltry cautions to the wind
And snatch you to my heart! Now, are you safe?

AVICE
O, thus for ever! (She starts away from him.)
Hush! I hear a step!
'Tis Vernon—leave me!

RAYMOND
Nay, I'll stand my ground.
I think I am a man, and not a mist
To be brushed off that he may see more clearly.

AVICE
O, if you love me, leave me!

RAYMOND
Thus adjured
I cannot choose. But I have learnt to-day
That our suspense is deadly, and must cease.

[Exit Raymond.
Avice
(alone).
O, if I come but safely to the light
I will abide in it for ever! Truth
Shall be my daily garment; 'twas not I
Who set this tree of life beyond my grasp
Which I can only reach by stratagem;
I hate the means, but die without the fruit.

Scene IV

Enter Vernon.
Vernon—Avice.
VERNON
I have performed your bidding—

AVICE
(interrupting)
True—I know it.
Friend, listen, for the need is great. You found
All that we feared?

VERNON
I fear he loves her not.

AVICE
Tut! Drive the dagger home—there's not a pulse
In all his round of days that's true to her!

VERNON
Speak not of truth and him, if this be so.
I hold him for the prince of treachery.

AVICE
O, let that pass—the question is of her.

VERNON
Aye and her doom was near. The bridal day
Is fixed.

AVICE
When? When?

VERNON
I break a seal to tell you.
Well—in a week.

AVICE
Then, save her! She's alone
In that green garden-temple where she sits
And weaves her daily liturgies. Go there
And tell her—you that love her, should be bold
To risk for her a little more than this.

VERNON
Can I that love her slay her with a word?

AVICE
Nay, but the surgeon, with a tender hand
Wounds, to preserve from death.

VERNON
How are you sure?
If we have erred in this—

AVICE
We have not erred.
Question not; take the certainty!

VERNON
But how—

AVICE
I dare not tell you how I know this thing.

VERNON
From his own lips?

AVICE
Yes—no—denial's vain!
From his own lips!

VERNON
Then should you tell the tale.

AVICE
O, Vernon, I'm a woman and I cannot.
Go you and speak the bitter thing you know;
Hide nothing, bid her seek him on the instant;
The fire of her quick coming shall compel
The fact, and though she suffers, she is saved.
Be such a friend as can afflict a friend—
There's nothing greater.

VERNON
Would I could be sure
That not a hope or fear about myself
Moves me at all; yet Avice, yet, I know
That since it is of right to break this bond,
The breaking stirs me with a secret thrill
That may become a hope.

AVICE
It shall be more.
You, her consoler, shall instruct her heart
Where it may rest.

VERNON
I go.

[Exit Vernon.
AVICE
(alone)
The deed is done.
There was no hand but mine, and there's no stain; [Looking ruefully at her hand.

Inevitable things are never sin,
And only breed remorse in feeble hearts.
The prince of treachery! A hideous name!
I'll trust him. O! how terribly I trust him!
He shall be true hereafter. We who hate
This barrier which an angry doom hath built
About the proper garden of our lives
Can cross it, and forget it, and be true
On the far flowery side of it, together!

[Exit Avice. Scene changes, and discovers a place in the Garden before the entrance to a Summerhouse.

Scene V.

Hope—Vernon.
HOPE
I know you mean me kindly.

VERNON
O, how cold
Sounds that word ‘kindly’ by the thing I mean!
I mean, by any spending of myself
By sacrifice, by even your priceless pain,
For which I hate myself, and you, thus grieved,
(But you are gentle) might be drawn to hate me:
By all this, and by more than this, I mean
To save the sweet life which you throw away
Not knowing what you do. But you are calm;
Have you received my words?

HOPE
I am constrained
To speak of what I should not. That you love me
Is your mistake—my sorrow. I would hide
From all the world, from mine own self, from you
If it were possible, that you have cast
Your precious gold, your sacred wealth of life,
To one who, not unthankful, can give back
Nothing more dear than thanks.

VERNON
Why speak of me?
I did not plead my love.

HOPE
Only for that,
That innocent wrong, which I perforce have done
And cannot remedy, I hear you calmly;
Yourself, but not your words, which touch me not,
Which I forget at once, for if remembered
It would be difficult to pardon them.

VERNON
Are you so sure? You do but cheat yourself;
Be honest, look into your heart, believe
The witness which avouches all I say;
Have those unnamed and manifold appeals
Which you find there, been satisfied? Why then
Each is a separate joy! If they be joys,
Why do you thus prohibit them like sins
Or stifle them like pangs?

HOPE
The thought is false.
If you could know the heart which you misread,
It measures not the greater. He must be
Its test and not its answer.

VERNON
So your lips,
Like skilful lawyers, frame an argument
To hide the point of danger, which a tear,
A blush, the murmur of a sigh, betrays;
Too faithful witnesses who mar their cause
While others plead it.

HOPE
I have heard enough:
You make forbearance treason.

VERNON
Yet a word—

HOPE
(interrupting)
Not a breath! I despise my gentleness;
I should have shown you this indignant heart
Which pity veiled (I must not be ashamed
To speak of pity now) since sense so base
Is put upon my patience. He whose name
I breathe not to you, will forgive my fault
More readily than I forgive myself
That I have heard you doubt him. For your sake,
But not for mine, nor his, take this reply:
There's not a cloud-flake in the upper air
Slight enough to be likened to your words
As they flit over mine unruffled faith
And fleck it with no shadow.

[She turns away.
VERNON
I am dumb.

HOPE
(returning)
You should have been so sooner.

VERNON
Here comes one
Who may convince you; slay me with your scorn
And I'll not make defence, if you but find
Courage to question him.

[Exit Vernon.
HOPE
What word is that?
Courage? I need no courage, being safe!
I have invited insults.

Enter Raymond. He starts back. She runs to him.

Scene VI.

Raymond—Hope.
HOPE
O my love,
Forgive me!

RAYMOND
For what crime?

HOPE
Against myself,
Not you—not for a moment against you
I sinned, because I suffered him to speak
Words which do blind me with remembered shame;
But you are here, and I am in the light
And I must show you all.

RAYMOND
(aside)
If this be so
As I would have it, as I think it is,
We are free, we triumph! (Aloud.)
Speak and have no fear!
Vernon I think went from you as I came;
Hope, I have read him through. I know he loves you
With such a loyal patience as your own
Which will not tamper with another's seal.
But he who set the seal can break it, Hope.
I'll give you words. If he has tempted you—
If there were trembling moments in your heart
Which as he pleaded, almost answered him
As he would have you answer, tell me all!
We are all frail—let all be merciful!

HOPE
Would you forgive me that? Alas, my Raymond,
I could not be so placable to you;
I know not if my love is hungrier,
Or if my trust, being made so perfect-pure,
Takes the least flaw for ruin, but I know
If I could let a doubt into my heart
'Twould break it in the entering.

RAYMOND
Then what said he?

HOPE
Are you so cold? Must I defend myself?
Should not that cause be safe whose just defence
Lies in the judge's breast? I was a child
When first you made me love you. Looking back
The time before that far beginning seems
Like a vague dream before a lovely day,
For I began to live then. You should know
Better than I, the manner and the growth—
It is myself, I cannot speak of it.
Oh, you were jesting when you doubted me;
There's not a word of love you ever spoke,
Not a kind look, nay, not a turn o' the voice
Dropping to tenderness, which stays not here, [touching her heart

Recalled a thousand times, making sweet fire
Under the common talk, which no man sees,
To feed the happy fulness of my life.
Sure you would mock me if I told you all,
If I could show you (as I could) the leaf
On yonder maple which the sun just kissed
When somewhere in last June you said you loved me;
Or the soft inch of moss which pressed my foot
When you compelled that answer from my lips
Which had so long been ringing in my heart.
Nay, but for shame, I could tell deeper things,
Yet have I told too much.

RAYMOND
(aside)
Must I hear this?
My punishment is greater than my fault. [Aloud, taking Hope's hands.

Hear me!

HOPE
Alas, your grasp is hard! It hurts!
I never wronged you by a thought.

RAYMOND
(drops her hands and turns away)
O, peace!
Do not look at me so—tell me—be sure
You speak bare truth—if you could know me guilty,
Worthless, a wretch for common speech to spurn
And priests to preach of, would you give me up?
Speak, would you?

HOPE
By this anguish in your voice
You are not jesting. Dear, if you have erred,
Some passion struck you—men may do the wrongs
Which women dream of, being tempted less;
But all are sinners in the sight of God.
You are so noble, that you charge your soul
With passages and moments which escape
The common record. Tell, or tell me not,
The pang which shakes your conscience, I am sure
It touches not my love.

RAYMOND
O ignorance,
To which the blackest secret in the abyss
Of miserable nature seems a cloud
Melting against the daylight! Words so sweet
Which make the heart so bitter! Irony
Cutting the sharper that it means to heal!
Hate me! You must, you shall!

HOPE
(with her hands on his arm)
I claim my right
In this new grief—being yours it must be mine.
Was it not always so, my Raymond? Think
That the familiar darkness holds you still
Where, trust me, you would miss the faithful voice
And unforsaking clasp. Are they less yours
Because your night is inward? O, I am bold
To count myself for something! Call to mind
That precious sorrow of the Past, which drew
Such comfort from my love, that I was glad
Once for a selfish moment, when I felt
That I was all your world. Chide me for that!
I am your servant now, and you my world,
But that's no change.

RAYMOND
It is impossible!

HOPE
No confidence can wound like this withholding.
If for my sake you hide a pain, remember
Ere it can prick your heart it pierces mine.
Nay, if you will not trust me, I must fear
You love me less.

[Weeps.
RAYMOND
(aside)
It burns me here—to death!
I cannot utter it. (Aloud.)
You conquer me
Against my will. I have not slept three nights;
Heed nothing that I say—I am not well—
There is a haunting fever in my blood
Which troubles me with visions.

HOPE
Ah, no sleep!
This bare tremendous life, which threatens you
Without its natural veil, shall seem an angel
When you have slept again. I marvel not
The calmness of your late endurance pays
This afterprice. I am glad you told me of it;
You must be handled gently.

RAYMOND
I'll go now
And try to rest.

Scene VII.

Grey—Raymond—Hope.
Enter Grey.
GREY
Well found! My errand, friends,
Needs you together.

HOPE
Father—

GREY
(interrupting)
(To Raymond, who starts)
Ah, you are quick;
You would forestall me—will a week content you,
Or must I say, to-morrow? Not a word?
(To Hope)
Come, are your ribbons ready? Will you baulk us
For any foolish scruple of delay
Because your keys are missing, or your robe
Lacks one out of its twenty tryings on?
Talk to her, Raymond!

RAYMOND
Sir, you are too rough—

GREY
What I? What, rough? Were I a woman, son,
I'd not be wooed so gingerly.

RAYMOND
Dear Hope,
Fear no unseemly haste—you shall be queen
Of your own time.

GREY
So please your majesty,
Your loyal subject, having, for good cause,
Devised the day for this great ceremony,
Implores you of your grace to sanction it.
Shall it be Thursday?

[Raymond turns away with a gesture of despair.
HOPE
(who has been looking in a bewildered manner from the one to the other)
I am not my own
That I should answer.

GREY
Hark! how modestly
She bids you take your privilege. (Aside, stamping)
Speak man!
Are you dumb dust?

RAYMOND
(aside)
Why shrink I from the lie
Having fulfilled the treason? (Aloud.)
Thursday, then;
A joyful promise!

GREY
Hope—

HOPE
I pray you leave me,
Or let me go, for I would be alone.

GREY
So, so, this liberty of solitude,
Being short-lived, grows precious. You shall stay
With your sweet thoughts. (To Raymond aside.)
But if you leave her thus,
You paper-hearted muser!—

[Raymond approaches Hope, who shrinks away from him.
HOPE
Do not touch me!
I do beseech you leave me!

GREY
Have your way!
We'll let her dream a little!

[Exit, with Raymond.
[Hope stands silent for a minute with downcast head, then suddenly looks up.
HOPE
Was it true?