Faith's Fraud A Tragedy in Five Acts |
 | 1. |
| 1. |
| 2. |
| 3. |
| 4. | SCENE IV. |
| 5. |
| 2. |
| 1. |
| 2. |
| 3. |
| 4. |
| 5. |
| 6. |
| 7. |
| 3. |
| 1. |
| 2. |
| 3. |
| 4. |
| 5. |
| 6. |
| 4. |
| 1. |
| 2. |
| 3. |
| 4. |
| 5. |
| 1. |
 | Faith's Fraud |  |
107
SCENE IV.
Chamber in the Castle.Count Albert and Rudestein.
RUDESTEIN.
This love should sun itself abroad. Your Grace
Has lost a salutary sight to-day.
COUNT.
What sight?
RUDESTEIN.
The Father Philip first—behind,
Two of Saint Margaret's virgins from the isle,
Veiled to the knee. He bare the altar-rood—
They looked nor right, nor left, nor straight before them;
But bowed their tearful eyes upon the ground.
COUNT.
This seems extremity, indeed—good lady!—
What dost thou know about their eyes and tears,
If veiled so closely as thou sayest?
RUDESTEIN.
Not much
Touching the eyes of one of them. She hath
A spacious foot, goes near above the ground—
Is scanty in the hams, long-flanked, and feeble:
Wall-eyed, no doubt, or one-eyed. When I spoke
She stumbled and stopped short.
COUNT.
What didst thou say?
RUDESTEIN.
“Fair Lady! gentle sister!” with obeisance.
The other stepped as lightly as a fawn—
From her, I begged a blessing—knelt before her,
And called her “gracious mother.” Learn this, sir:
In naming women ever misapply—
Confound the epithet. Your fair one knows
That she is fair—your wise that she is wise:
But each desires the other's attribute;
And he who gives earns praise. This younger nun
Was pleased with seeming gravity: the elder
Discerned a right discerning gentleman.
108
What matters if it pleased or no, being nuns,
And one being old?
RUDESTEIN.
Good catechist, take heed,
Take special heed to please the old and homely!
The fair are easily pleased—their fairness pleases.
Opinion rules the world—both love, and hate,
And reason too, are all subordinate:
Imagination leads them all. Thinkest thou
These sisters whisper but to one another?
Wouldst have the covey?—strive to catch the hen.
COUNT.
Here comes a small and solitary chick—
One tamed without such method—by the force
Of simple fascination, was it not?
RUDESTEIN.
Mine own domestic sparrow, Barbara.
Enter Barbara.
BARBARA.
What did he say of sparrows?
COUNT.
He called thee such,
Thou bird of Venus, when her doves are chaste.
But first about these sisters from the isle—
What brings them here so high? They would not make
Mine Ellen a nun?
BARBARA.
They may make one of me.
I tire of this ill world, its Counts and cousins!
COUNT.
But wherefore, good young maiden?
BARBARA.
Because if good,
I have been better, and if young, been younger.
RUDESTEIN.
And if a maid?—go on.
COUNT.
What cousins and Counts?
BARBARA.
One is a scornful mischief-making idler
About mid-age, who whispered love most falsely:
The other, sir, is mighty—for he helps
109
Prince Palatine! what not! his grace! his highness!
And younger he, but worse. The first beguiled
A simple heart to folly—he has taught it
How to betray the simple.
COUNT.
Whom?
BARBARA.
My lady:
The lamb my mistress. Both together, teach me
To drink, tell tales, and aid the impudent.
RUDESTEIN.
Hush now! be still!
BARBARA.
What dost thou harken at?
RUDESTEIN.
The father Philip—as I am a Christian!
BARBARA.
It will be ruin if he find me here!
RUDESTEIN.
Peace, child!
BARBARA.
I hear his sandal on the stairs:
Where shall I hide me?
RUDESTEIN.
Lift thine apron up—
And stand before us trembling—choke thyself—
Weep, Bab! weep bitterly!—It is his work:
(Enter Father Philip.)
We have no power to pardon thee. Hush! peace!
Father, we need thee much, and yet must grieve thee.
Seest thou this maid?
PHILIP.
Ay—what do maidens here?
Your highness sent to find me?
COUNT.
Thanks, good Philip.
I would beseech a word or two apart.
RUDESTEIN.
'Tis charitable seeking in his grace:
She how she weeps!—but let her weep!
PHILIP.
For what?
110
The maid has erred from truth, and should repent.
PHILIP.
What ails thee, child? I heard thy mistress call thee:
What hast thou done?
RUDESTEIN.
My cousin! Did Ellen call her?
The wretch is shamed, then!
PHILIP.
How?
RUDESTEIN.
She hath untied
An ordinance of the Church to-day, and reached
Her hand in theft!
PHILIP.
Alas!—how knowest thou this?
How happens it that trespasses like these
Were found of thee so early?
RUDESTEIN.
I surprised her!
The child does not deny it.
PHILIP.
What! in theft?
RUDESTEIN.
It being a vigil, and Saint Martin's eve,
She ate of remnants which her mistress left—
The boiled white of an egg!
COUNT.
And did excuse it!
The day was not remembered—and the egg
In part was hers—her perquisite!
RUDESTEIN.
Behold
She comes to crave of us her sin's remission!
But do thou teach that theft is damnable;
And all forgetfulness augments the sin!
PHILIP.
Go, get thee gone, child. Shun these scorners, Barbara.
They practise on thine ignorance. It is not
The vigil of Saint Martin—and the egg
Was harmless, part or whole.
RUDESTEIN.
Then go thy way.
111
COUNT.
Sweet Barbara, run, and bear my services.
BARBARA.
Needs tell my lady what I did amiss?
RUDESTEIN.
Being done unwittingly, it is not needed.
(Exit Barbara.)
PHILIP.
Fie! fie! what silly pastime is this tyranny!
O'er one so innocent too!
RUDESTEIN.
The Count in love
Is meditative, melancholy, moody,
Unsocial past companionship. Beseech thee
Give countenance to a cup of wine?
PHILIP.
I drink
No wine to-day. My counsel for his love,
Is temperance, till it leave him. There will be
No shorter remedies than sleep and patience.
RUDESTEIN.
His love will end in charity. What else
Could make thyself the gracious man thou art?
These nuns are near to lose their patroness:
Yet may they find a better comforter.
PHILIP.
Not in this world.
RUDESTEIN.
If that which good men pray—
Unchristian enmities be all forgot—
The Count may join his substance with my cousin's,
And so their means wax two-fold.
PHILIP.
They suffice.
RUDESTEIN.
He may augment their number—make more of them.
COUNT.
How are they called?
RUDESTEIN.
The nuns of Rolandswerth.
Their office is to watch before the tomb
Where Roland sleeps with all mine ancestors.
The bones of twenty generations rest
112
As willing prisoners in the isle below.
COUNT.
How came they hither, then, to-day?
RUDESTEIN.
Our house,
Which founded, has protected and endowed;
Not humbly, like their customs, but as suits
Its own munificence. Yet they say no.
They thank us only for our rain and sunshine,
And claim priority, as planted first.
Love perched us here, they say, to overlook them:
For this we built our battlements so high.
COUNT.
How did he find them out?—he blind, and they
So thickly veiled?
RUDESTEIN.
Our Roland loved a maid—
The maid became a nun—the nun dwelt here:
And better in his eyes the roof above her,
The chimney on that roof, or from that chimney
The smoke—though watery air, and far from pure—
Than all the realms he conquered with the sword.
COUNT.
What be their vows? They may come out, it seems?
PHILIP.
They do to tend on sickness, visit want,
Or pray with misery.
RUDESTEIN.
Then send them hither.
His highness makes me miserable—he is
Sick of celibacy, and wants a wife.
COUNT.
Is it true they see not one another's faces?
RUDESTEIN.
They keep no glass in which to see their own.
Who knows what eyes may hide behind those veils,
If they themselves do not!
PHILIP.
And who need care?
RUDESTEIN.
I—as the twentieth in descent from Roland.
113
Fie! Rudestein, fie!
RUDESTEIN.
Ay, fie! That fatherly face
May not be hid from them, if theirs from thee.
And this, at least, I do believe—
PHILIP.
Say what?
RUDESTEIN.
Why, that it is a very goodly face—
Has none of them confessed so much to thee?
PHILIP.
My lord, adieu!
RUDESTEIN.
Nay, prithee—why so brief?
The Baroness hath better health to-day:
She will not die?
PHILIP.
Dost think so?
RUDESTEIN.
Ay, I do:
And have a second hook to hitch belief on—
She is not called.
PHILIP.
Who told thee?
RUDESTEIN.
Then she is?
COUNT.
How called?
RUDESTEIN.
The good amongst us may not quit
Till sent for by the one who went before them.
The last defunct invites his follower.
I look for special heralds some day soon.
PHILIP.
Again good night, my Lord—with better health,
And wiser company!
[Exit Philip.
COUNT.
All he can tell
Is that my love must find its ease in patience!
No doubt but he can tell. Such watchers stand
Aloft, like windcocks o'er our battlements,
Surveying all beneath them and around them:
114
By snatches twice a week!
RUDESTEIN.
Then quit unmarried.
Be gone in peace, a bachelor.
COUNT.
And would—
But that the dice are comforters.
RUDESTEIN.
Not mine—
I shall be soon a beggar from the deaf!
COUNT.
You take in gold the difference when you win:
And pay your losses with the hope of Ellen.
Bring purse as well as tables.
RUDESTEIN.
But your grace
Slips not the reckoning day by day—there is
A parchment history of our debts and dues—
The bond, the declaration, hand and seal.
I am a church-porch beggar, save his dish!
Two thousand crowns in debt!
COUNT.
The bride shall free thee.
The day of payment is the wedding day.
Till then, I must have tokens if I win.
My stake is gold—thine mortgages on Roland;
Some castle with its gates of chrysolite.
RUDESTEIN.
The Baron does not love thee—and he says
His daughter shall not love thee. I endured
Rebuke to-day, meddling on thy behalf.
The father of your highness slew mine uncle!
COUNT.
Ay—so he did.
RUDESTEIN.
The Saints forgive him freely—
I do, as one of them.
COUNT.
This daughter's love
I have, and I will hold the while I may.
RUDESTEIN.
He frets against the friends who made your peace,
115
No second wife to death—but sad and single,
Live all life long in solitude. We two
Must quit his house!
COUNT.
A pestilence on his house!
At least while his. How quit it, being in love?
Pride still grows prouder, chained by benefits
Which cannot be requited nor refused.
Would I might blow the horn before his gates,
And throw the gauntlet over them!
RUDESTEIN.
Be patient!
Mine is a hateful need, repaid by hate.
Fat Cupid buys not me with Baronies!
COUNT.
Caitiff! dost mock my love?—I own it was so—
But now, by all his wronged divinity—
This Vestal's fire has caught me and consumes me!
Coy she was ever toward me—yet at first
Gay, sisterly, suspicionless, and gentle.
She blushes now and shuns me—nay, her eyes
Are filled with tears—and therefore now she loves me.
RUDESTEIN.
Bah! what care I about her tears?—This way.
The dice are locked within, and cooler wine.
My Barbara does not blush, but bite. Now Fortune!
[Exeunt.
| Faith's Fraud | |