University of Virginia Library

ACT III.

SCENE I.

A terrace in front of Lynterne Castle. Sunset.
Enter Mordaunt.
Mor.
How beautiful are all things when we love!
The illuminated globe revolves around
The loved one as its axis of pure light.
She whom I love is human; for her sake
I love all human-kind—yea, all that is.
Whene'er birds sing, she hears them in her walks,
Or from her open lattice; henceforth birds
Are sacred to my soul. The sun, that lights
Her daily path; mild moon, and solemn stars,
That shine into her chamber; trees, her shade
From noontide heat; rivers, whose winding way
And murmuring song console her when she strays
By their green banks at eve; delighted flowers,
That yield their fragrance to her; forest paths
Pressed by her feet—I love. Our planet earth
Is her abode; for her sake I love earth,
And for earth's sake love all that earth contains.
O, it is great, and wise, and good to love!
To feel we live in all things, and that they
Live by us, and not we by them; to be
The pulse to our own universe!
And loves she me?
She listens to my words, and seldom speaks.
Why need she speak, when every glance replies?
First it was otherwise; her repartee,
Quick wit, and lively sallies flashed all day;
Her answers now are few and brief, as though
The task of ordering her thoughts for speech
Woke her from blissful dreams; my soul itself
Seemed suffused in her presence, bathed in light,
As plants beneath the solemn, tender moon,
Which gilds their life with beauty, as she mine,
And joys in heaven to see their silvered leaves,
Unknowing 'tis her smile that makes their brightness,
Which fades from earth whene'er she wanes in heaven.
A cloud comes over mine. 'Tis Lady Lydia!
Enter Lady Lydia.
I trust you find the evening breeze refresh you?

Lyd.
A debtor to your wishes, sir! I thank you.
[Aside.]
I'll not delay, for opportunity,
Once slighted, oft escapes. When do you leave us?

Mor.
Shortly. Perhaps within a week or two,
Provided for that time my sojourn prove
No inconvenience here.

Lyd.
I fear it will.

Mor.
Had I thought so, you had not seen me now.

Lyd.
I will be plain, sir.
Plainness is always the best courtesy
Where truths are to be told. You still are young,
And want not personal grace; your air, your words,
Are such as captivate. You understand me?

Mor.
Scarcely; for these things most men harbour guests.

Lyd.
True; except sometimes
When they are fathers. You are honourable,
And, after what has passed, will leave us straight.

Mor.
I scarcely dare presume to give your words
Their nearest meaning!

Lyd.
Yet you may do so.

Mor.
The Lady Mabel?

Lyd.
Yes.

Mor.
Looks not on me indifferently?

Lyd.
That you will join me in regretting, sir.

Mor.
I may hope—

[Pauses in agitation.
Lyd.
She has confessed it.

Mor.
In your hearing?

Lyd.
You are minute, I see, and well may doubt,
Except on surer witness than surmise,
So strange a tale. Alas! the evidence
Courts sight and touch: I hold it in my hand—
This letter— [Mordaunt regards her inquiringly.]
—nothing— [As with a sudden impulse.]
—I dare trust your honour.
You know I lately spent three days from home:
I then wrote Mabel what I could not speak—
My warning on the signs I had perceived
Of love's unconscious growth. This is her answer.
[Showing letter.
I was too late. That answer bore—O patience!—
What can I call it else?—her love's confession.

Mor.
Her love for me!

Lyd.
Forgive me, 'tis too much.
[Tears it.
Thus let the winds disperse the proofs of shame!
'Twould be most happy were its memory
As easily effaced.

[Throwing away the fragments.
Mor.
Her love for me!

Lyd.
In words—

Mor.
O, name them not,
Those sacred breathings of her soul—relate not
What precious items make my sum of bliss
Past computation rich! Enough, she loves me!
I'll seek her on the instant.

[Going.
Lyd.
[Aside.]
That, indeed,
Would mar my plan. No; silence is your course:
It is most delicate, least painful, too.
No word were well save farewell, and that said
As those who have no long acquaintance say it.

Mor.
I will not say it
So to the Lady Mabel now, or ever,
Unless it be her will.

Lyd.
You will not take
Advantage of her weakness. Do not, sir,
Let it be thought that we, in welcoming you,
Shook hands with an adventurer.

Mor.
[Indignantly.]
Madam!
[With constrained courtesy.
You are her relative, and I am dumb.

[Going.
Lyd.
Stay.
Think you the Earl's voice would not crush your plan,
The moment that surprise permitted speech?

Mor.
Why should it?

Lyd.
Must I speak outright!

Mor.
Yes, surely.

Lyd.
The house of Lynterne
Dates from the time that he of Normandy
O'erthrew the Saxon sway; since then its lords,
In war or peace, have held the foremost rank
In conflict or in council. Of the race,
Not one has formed alliance, save with such
As boasted kindred honours. Sir, our house
Is noble—must remain so till its end.

Mor.
Is not yon sunset splendid?

Lyd.
Possibly;
But we may see that often, and it bears
Not now on our discourse.

Mor.
Indeed it does.
However proud, or great, or wise, or valiant
The Lady Mabel's ancestors, that sun
From age to age has watched their honours end,
As man by man fell off; and centuries hence
Yon light into oblivion may have lit
As many stately trains as now have passed.
And yet my soul, orb of eternity,
When yonder globe is ashes as your sires,
Shall shine on undecaying! When men know
What their own natures are, and feel what God
Intended them to be, they are not awed
By pomps the sun outlives.

Lyd.
Think of me as your friend—when you are gone.
You have a towering spirit. Had the rank
And blood of Lady Mabel been as yours,
I had not said a word to spite your wish.

Mor.
You see this ring?

Lyd.
I have admired it oft. Would you thus hint
That you are rich?

Mor.
Is not the setting precious!

Lyd.
The diamond is superb!

Mor.
True; but the setting?

Lyd.
The diamond is the treasure.

Mor.
No, the setting!

Lyd.
The setting is but silver, worthless, base,
Contrasted with the stone.

Mor.
True, Lady Lydia.
Then when I treat for merchandise would buy
All stars of heaven up, were they diamond worlds,—
A peerless woman's love,—why runs your phrase,
“You might have had that unmatched gem for nought
Had it not been so set,” in ancestry
Or some such silver rim? Enough of this;
I'll now to Lady Mabel.

[Going.
Lyd.
Be advised.
If you persist in this strange scheme, seek first
An audience of the Earl: if he consent,
The which is most unlikely, Mabel's love
Is honourably yours; if he refuse,
You incur no disgrace, as you would do
Luring his daughter's heart unknown to him.

Mor.
The Earl is in the library even now.
I'll learn his thoughts at once.

Lyd.
I pity you.
It will be a hard task for your high spirit
To sue the Earl in such a humble strain
As will be requisite.

Mor.
Humble! I—Mordaunt!

Lyd.
Your ground is delicate; you must be cautious;
Confess your low estate, and own the prize
You seek to gain far beyond your desert;
You must put by your recent haughty tone
And kingly glances; plead with downcast eye
And hesitating voice; all this, I say,
Must keenly gall your nature; and therefore
I pity you.

Mor.
I were indeed a slave,
And needing pity, could I so forget
My manhood; but 'twere vain to reason more
With one who knows me not.

[He bows with cold dignity, and goes out.
Lyd.
O, this is well!
He'll to my brother in a haughty mood—
The very one I wished for; 'twill arouse
All the Earl's latent pride. And now for Mabel!
Upon the wish she comes.

[Retires to back.
Enter Lady Mabel; she comes on slowly, and in thought.
Mab.
Why have not noble natures noble names?
Or why are names of import? O world, world!
With many a captious custom dost thou bind
The heart that seeks enlargement! What is birth?
The gift I prized seems my misfortune now.
I know none like to Mordaunt. Even my father
Honours and courts him. What is this to me?
A line invisible divides our fates.
O, would that he had rank—that he were poor,
So he were well derived! The day may come
When he will earn nobility, and men
Of prouder birth may court his smile; and then,
Perchance (for love is strong), I might descend
A few steps from my pinnacle. Fool! fool!
This is a dream of summer and of youth.
I know not my own soul; 'tis ardent now,
But years may chill it into apathy.
Why not?—'tis thus with others. I could weep.

Lyd.
[Advancing.]
So, you've been secret, Mabel,
'Twas hardly kind; but I waive all displeasure.
I trust you may be happy.

Mab.
This is strange language, aunt.

Lyd.
I might reply,
Yours is strange conduct, niece: but let that pass.
My brother too was silent; but I fancy
He understood it all; perhaps had planned it
Before his guest arrived.

Mab.
Planned what? What guest?
Try me not thus! Your meaning in a word?

Lyd.
Why counterfeit surprise? Do you not know
Mordaunt is with your father, even now?

Mab.
Well, what is that to me?

Lyd.
Much, I should say,
Were I now young, in love, and knew what boon
The man I loved was seeking from my father.

Mab.
You jest.

Lyd.
I am in earnest. He had your consent,
Doubtless, to back his prayer.

Mab.
No; never, never!

Lyd.
Not in strict formal terms, perhaps, but still
By such expressions as the timid use
To help the lips' checked utterance by the eye.

Mab.
I never spoke the word presumption's self
Could torture to a pledge of love for him.

Lyd.
I am amazed! it is not half an hour
Since his own lips assured me that the Earl
Must needs confirm his choice.

Mab.
Presuming arrogance!

Lyd.
He spoke in easy strain,
His air half buoyancy, half carelessness,
As though success were slave to him, and came
Without the pains of calling.

Mab.
What sanction have I given him thus to boast?

Lyd.
I warned you once to guard, lest what you meant
For courtesy he should interpret love.

Mab.
I never passed the bound of courtesy.

Lyd.
You meant it not, that's certain; but, forgive me,
At times I thought myself the bound was passed.
Did you not tell me, Mabel, that the Earl
Requested special kindness for this man?

Mab.
[With sudden indignation.]
What man?

Lyd.
This gentleman, this Mordaunt, at whose hands
The Earl looked for some service. Am I right?

Mab.
Yes; so he said.

Lyd.
Then what can be more plain?
Your father seeks support in power from Mordaunt,
Which he intends to sell—the price, your hand.
How now! you shiver; yet the air is mild.

Mab.
The mind has seasons like the body, aunt.
My father shall resent this. Buy my hand!

Lyd.
You may depend he means it.

Mab.
So you said.
Why is your tone so measured, and your look
So calm on this occasion? Where's the fire
That should be in your eyes? Your temper's sweet;
But now I like it not, I like it not!

[Weeps.
Lyd.
I cannot chide
If under quick excitement at your wrong
You are unjust to me. A step!
Enter Servant.
Well!

Ser.
Madam,
My lord would see you and the Lady Mabel;
He waits you in the library.

[He goes out.
Lyd.
Come, Mabel;
Nay, sweet, take heart!

Mab.
What is there I should fear?
Let us be going, aunt;—I'm calm—quite calm.

[They go out.

SCENE II.

Library, as before.
The Earl and Mordaunt discovered.
Mor.
Is love a crime?
Can we prevent its coming? or when come,
Can we command it from us?

Earl.
We may, at least,
Curb its expression, when disgrace and grief
Are like to follow it.

Mor.
Disgrace! Your daughter's noble, fair, and good;
I shall not feel disgraced in taking her.

Earl.
[Sitting.]
Sir! you are insolent.
Enter Lady Mabel and Lady Lydia.
Mabel, my child,
Have I not loved you truly, shown all kindness
That is a daughter's due?

Mab.
Indeed you have.

Earl.
Have you done well
In making stranger to a father's heart
The dearest wish of yours?—in plighting faith
For life, unknown to him who gave you life?

Mab.
This have I never done.

Mor.
Tell all, speak frankly;
Have you not, Lady Mabel, given me proof
Of favour in your sight will justify
The boon I have entreated of the Earl—
Permission to be ranked as one who seeks
For closer union with you than a friend's?
I know you gave no pledge; but looks and deeds,
And words whose precious sense was in their tones—
These bade me love! Was it not so? Answer, Mabel!

Mab.
Mabel! the Lady Mabel, when you speak.

Lyd.
She utterly denies what you infer.

Mab.
Yes, utterly.

Mor.
And Lady Lydia speaks thus;
She who confirmed my hopes!—I see, for sport.

Lyd.
We think you but presumptuous; let your honour
Guard you from veiling shame by sin; nor strive
From loose discourse, spoken in pleasantry,
To justify your conduct.

Mor.
And the letter?

Lyd.
The letter! He's distracted.

Mab.
Letter! [Apart to Lydia.]
Aunt?

Lyd.
Yes, love.

Mab.
[Aside.]
No, no; I will not wrong her; it is plain
His folly has deceived him.

Mor.
May I then ask,
If you have never loved me, why you deigned
To wear love's semblance; deigned, when I approached,
To feign joy's sudden smile; to urge my stay
With lips that, faltering, won me, and with eyes
That pleaded more by drooping; hour by hour
To sit half mute and bid me still speak on,
Then pay me with a glance in which there seemed
A heart's whole volume writ?

Mab.
[Sitting.]
This is too much.
Whate'er my kindness meant, it did not mean
To foster your presumption, though, perhaps,
Suspecting it, and lacking at the time
Better employment, I allowed it scope,
Did not repress it harshly, and amused,
Rather than angered, failed to put a bound
To its extravagance.

Mor.
All, then, has been a jest; the thing resolves
Itself into a harmless badinage!
You had no other toy, so took my heart
To while away an hour. The plaything broke;
But then it was amusement!

Lyd.
You were honoured
In thus assisting to beguile the hours
Of Lady Mabel's solitude.

Mor.
Honoured, say you?
Men's hearts have leaped within them at my words.
The lowly have adored me, and the proud—
Ay, sir, the proud—have courted me; you know it.

Lyd.
All this would sound much to your credit, sir,
Were other lips to speak it.

Mor.
Understand me.
You deem me proud. I am so; and yet humble:
[To Mabel.]
To you I would have been a slave; have moulded
Each wish to your desire; have laid my fame,
Though earth had ratified it, at your feet,
Nor deemed the offering worthy of your smile!
But when, admitting what I am, you scorn me
For what my father was, sport with me, trample
On the same hopes you fostered, then I claim
The patent which the Great Paternity
Of heaven assigns to nature—not descent—
And walk before you in the march of time!

Lyd.
The stale, fond trick—to boast of honours stored
In ether, where no human eye can pierce.
You may be prince of several stars—possess
All cloudland for your realm; but one poor knighthood,
Conferred by a real sword upon real shoulders,
Beats fifty thousand dukedoms in the air.
The old, convenient trick!

Earl.
Nay, courtesy!

Lyd.
You'll suffer us to go?

Earl.
Yes, leave me.

[Mabel rises; they are about to go.
Mor.
Stay!
Before we part, I have a word or two
For Lady Mabel's ear. [To Mabel.]
I know right well
The world has no tribunal to avenge
An injury like mine; you may allure
The human heart to love, warm it with smiles,
To aspirations of a dream-like bliss,
From which to wake is madness—and when spells
Of your enchantment have enslaved it quite,
So that you are its world, its light, its life,
And all beside is dark and void and dead—
I say, that very heart, brought to this pass,
You may spurn from your path, pass on and jest,
And the crowd will jest with you; you may glide,
With eye as radiant, and with brow as smooth,
And feet as light, through your charmed worshippers,
As though the angel's pen had failed to trace
The record of your crime; and every night,
Lulled by soft flatteries, you may calmly sleep
As do the innocent; but it is crime,
Deep crime, that you commit! Had you for sport
Trampled upon the earth a favourite rose,
Pride of the garden, or in wantonness
Cast in the sea a jewel not your own,
All men had held you guilty of offence!

Lyd.
[To Earl.]
Is it fit that longer you should brook this censure?

Mor.
And is it then no sin
To crush those flowers of life, our freshest hopes,
With all the incipient beauty in the bud,
Which know no second growth? to cast our faith
In human-kind, the only amulet
By which the soul walks fearless through the world,
Into those floods of bitter memory
Whose awful depths no diver dares explore?
To paralyse the expectant mind, while yet
On the world's threshold, and existence' self
To drain of all save its inert endurance?
To do this unprovoked—I put it to you,
Is not this sin? To the unsleeping eye
Of Him who sees all aims, and knows the wrongs
No laws save His redress, I make appeal
To judge between us!

Earl.
Sir, our conference
Is ended.

Mor.
It is ended.

[He goes out.
Mab.
He's deceived!
He hears me not! He knows me not! He's gone!

Earl.
Why, what is this, dear Mabel?

Mab.
Nothing, sir.
I am not used, you know, to witness strife.
It somewhat chafes my spirit.

Earl.
Hither, love.

[Mabel reels forward, and falls into her father's arms.
[An interval of Five Years is supposed to elapse between the Third and Fourth Acts.]