University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

Apartment in the Chateau of Marie de Méranie.
Enter Sir Lucien and Anne.
Sir L.
Nay, trust me; change so sudden and extreme
Springs not from light occasion! She—a lady
Of charity, more prompt than need was urgent;
So patient, kind, serene—observe her now:
Imperious oft, secluded, well-nigh stern;
Capricious, fitful, motiveless in mirth!

Anne.
Why, that's to say she's woman. Women change
Sea-like, to show their rich variety.
To-day there's scarce a ripple, and to-morrow
The waves are mountains. Now they're sober grey;
Now brightly blue, they laugh and chase each other;
Now, a black, moving wall, they crash in thunder.
Sweet saints, how stale that man or woman were
Who could not change. I've known such.

Sir L.
You evade me.
Some cruel stroke of fate has thus transformed her.
It may be loss of friends, or trust betrayed,
Or hopeless love.

Anne.
Or it may be the toothache.
Hopeless love! Good!

[With laughter.
Sir L.
You jest, not knowing love.

Anne.
Prythee, set not
Thyself to teach me.

Sir L.
Why not?

Anne.
Why not, Wisdom?
Because to me love means a smiling face,
While thine is rueful,—the brave march of life
To clashing cymbals or the ring of steel,
While thou dost drone on lute and mope in chambers.
Why, thou wouldst woo in sermons, wed in black,
And celebrate thy marriage by a fast!
Nay, lay aside the sword and don the cowl;
'Tis sad the Church should lack one skilled like thee
In framing homilies!

Sir L.
They shall not tire you.
[Aside.]
Anne has no heart. 'Tis pity she is fair;
More pity I should know it.

[He bows coldly, and goes out.
Anne.
He would pierce
The silent mystery of the heart she shrouds,
Or would shroud, from my love, and then, perchance,
As he hath caught the minstrel's craft, regale
The ears of languid knights and curious squires
With my dear lady's story. Ah! she comes.

Enter Marie.
Anne.
[Aside, regarding her.]
Beneath pride's robe grief hides its throbs in vain:
The fluttering folds betray the heart beneath.

Marie.
[Suddenly turning and observing her.]
Well, mistress! What offence?

Anne.
Madam! Offence?

Marie.
Ay; where's the flaw? Where fails my tire-woman?
See'st thou my robe awry, or hair unbound?
From head to foot, where's my defect?

Anne.
Indeed,
I mark none, madam.

Marie.
What has made me, then,
So curious in your sight—Lucien's and yours?
Why meet and follow me your constant eyes?
My face is not a dial. If it were,
It lacks the sunshine!

Anne.
They who seek its face
In sunshine—use the dial; but who bends
O'er it in cloudy hours is won to gaze
By gratitude alone.

Marie.
[Sitting.]
A fair conceit!
My footstool! And who taught my joyous Anne
These grave moralities? Be blithe, my girl!
Thought comes with sorrow; sorrow comes with years.
Alas! sometimes with few. For me, I'm vowed
To mirth so deeply, no calamity
Shall e'er make me less happy than I am.

Enter Sir Lucien, hastily.
Sir L.
News, Lady Anne! The king—

Marie.
The king! Well, sir?

Sir L.
Madam, 'tis said between his majesty
And his new queen such difference hath grown
As rends the solemn ties that lately bound them.
'Tis rumoured that their marriage is annulled
By order of the Council; on what ground
I know not yet.

Marie.
On any, friend; for power
Is its own argument. Unhappy lady!
My heart bleeds for thee. [Aside.]
Lucien, thou hast found
Our hall too like a prison. Forth and join
The city's pageant.

Sir L.
Ah! the day is lost
That sees me from your service.

Marie.
Thanks! But go.
So wilt thou serve me. 'Tis my wish.
[Sir Lucien goes out.
He's gone!
I have a partner in calamity
In this wronged queen. I could not weep till now!

[Falling on Anne's neck.
Anne.
'Tis strange I should be glad to see thee weep;
And yet I am.

Marie.
The bitterness is past.
I've too much strained thy patience. Thou'lt forgive me?
To-morrow we return to Méranie;
And there, if Marie midst her sire's dependants
Their humble lot may cheer, their burthens ease,
Her life may yet have use. What mean those sounds?

[Trumpets heard without.
Re-enter Sir Lucien, followed by the King.
Sir L.
Madam, the king craves audience.

Phil.
Whose the lip
But his to ask that boon? Marie!

Marie.
Your grace!
Wherefore?—Nay, sir, 'tis granted.—Friends, retire.

[Sir Lucien and Anne go out.
Phil.
How poor are thanks for payment. Thou wilt hear,
Perchance—oh! dare I hope it—pity?

Marie.
Both.
If you endure a grief unmerited,
I pity much; and if deserved, still more.

Phil.
Severer than rebuke is this forbearance.
Goes thy heart with it?

Marie.
Comprehend me, sir.
I do not feign that you have used me well,
Or that I have not suffered. But the wrong
Heaven strengthened me to bear, it bids me pardon.
As these are parting words, believe their truth.

Phil.
Speak'st thou of parting?

Marie.
To my father's land
The morrow lights me.

Phil.
Sooner be it quenched!
I come to atone the madness which awhile
Shut out thine image. To the throne of France
I bear thee. There no haughty rival towers:
Her chains are rent!

Marie.
[Sternly.]
How rent?

Phil.
She stands divorced.

Marie.
And thou hast done this! King, one woman's heart
Glows not with triumph at another's fall;
But shivers 'neath the warmest robe of love
Rent from a sister freezing in her woe,
And naked to the insult of the world!

Phil.
She loves me not; our differing wills recoil.
A grant in land to compensate her dower
Will medicine all her grief. Besides, in this,
I but obey the Church. Say, can thy voice
Cancel our prelates' judgment, or recal
Whom they have exiled? No; on me alone
Thy vengeance falls. Alas! I have deserved
Thou shouldst forget or scorn me.

Marie.
I forget!
I scorn, whose memory has no other wealth
Than those blest hours which, diving in the past,
She bears me back—dear relics of Hope's wreck!
[Aside.
I scorn! No, Philip! It will make my pulse
Beat quicker in its silence, when I hear
That you are happy; and should perils come,
The faltering prayer your ear will never know,
May yet reach Heaven's. And so we do not part
In anger. From my inmost heart I bless you!

Phil.
What words are these that bless me in their sound,
And curse me in their sense? O Marie, hear me!
Thy love is not alone my fortune's crown;
'Tis Nature's need! not to my branch of life
An added blossom, but the vital essence
Replenishing the root! You changed my being!
I measured glory once by daring deeds,
Extended empire and prostrate foes.
You taught me, first, to think Deliverer
A holier name than Victor; that the rod
Of terror rules but shrinking clay, while love
Sits throned in living hearts! I thought of thee,
And from the captive dropped his chain; of thee,
And pardoned, rose the traitor at my feet;
Of thee, and bade the tyrant-stricken serf
Look up, and greet a father in his king!
O saint of mercy, I have built thee shrines
By happy hearths through France! It is thy life
That thrills in every pulse, thy soul that floods
Each artery of my own! Each thought of good
Is but thyself reflected! Spurn not, crush not,
That which thou didst create!

[Sinking on his knee.
Marie.
[Aside.]
My feet are fixed.
I would depart, but cannot.

Phil.
[Rising.]
Listen, heed!
Thou seest me contrite, pardon; weak, sustain;
Erring, direct me! Snatch me from the toils
Of selfish brains, the chill of frigid hearts,
The infected air that stifles and corrupts
The soul that pants to live! Unpitying still,
Still silent! Then farewell; but when the years
Of woe unshared, of struggles with the base
Who taint even what resists them, aims unguided,
Have frozen impulse into apathy,
Mercy to rigour; when the man, whom once
You might have raised, bless'd, saved, becomes—Well, well,
Whate'er I may become, think what I was,
And what I might have been had Marie loved me!

Marie.
Had Marie loved thee?

Phil.
And I dreamed she did.

Marie.
O Philip! I am thine.

[Throwing herself into his arms.
Phil.
Mine! 'tis a sound
I could repeat for ever. Mine, mine, mine!