University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

—A room in the Tower very early in the morning. Alice and Babington.
Alice
(sadly).
How do we meet? Would heaven I had died,
Nor seen you thus! My heart lies dead in me
For very sorrow!

Babington.
All things have an end:
So end my dreams. As man must one day die,
What matter whether 'tis at chilly Yule
Or warm midsummer? 'Tis but as some journey
Which fate predestin'd me to undertake
A day or two before; years seem but hours
To those who gaze mistrustfully at Time,
Failing to clip his wings. The happy years,
Men say, fly fastest. I, who ne'er have stoop'd
To wallow in that paradise of fools
Wherein some seem contented, scarcely know
The common meaning of that common thing
Which men call happiness. I nursed my hopes,
And these are fled. What matter when I die?

Alice.
You are resigned, poor cousin, prais'd be God!
May He sustain you to the bitter end.
I know you had firm courage and resolve.

Babington.
These things are only letters strung together,
Nor know we wholly of what stuff we are,
Until we reach that end of which you speak,
Calling it bitter. But whether bitter or sweet,
There is a stronger force than firm resolve—
The force that leads the rack'd one to declare
Himself a guilty man, whose hands are clean,
Or their hands bloody that were once his friends.
This force is Pain. And those that best endure
First, thought of this, and after, pain itself—
Stand out the bravest men in history.
And yet 'tis not their mental probity
They forfeit, as their straining sinews wince
Under accumulating torture. See,
I dash this hardware vessel to the ground,
[Throws earthen platter on the ground.
It stands the shock, nor splinters in the fall;
Yet dared I try with such a feeble thing
As seems some egg-shell brought you over sea,
It would be lost to you—in fifty bits.
'Tis but the clay that is not staunch enough,
And whose fault, save the potter's? So with us—
The brave soul prison'd in the porcelain shell,
Shrinks thro' its agony of fibre and nerve,
The better borne by him of stouter frame,
E'en were he craven-hearted. Thus it is—
And whose fault save the potter's?

Alice.
None the less,
My dear, dear love that was (I call you thus,
Knowing you never may be love of mine),
You will not swerve in your fidelity
To those that were your friends? Nay, should the rack,
Accursed engine! (Ah, can God's just eye
Look on and see it?) torture your poor frame,
(Too horrid thought!) set your teeth thus, and thus
Let your nails gnaw into your clenching palms,
Rather than speak! Nay, drag your aching limbs
Like our old kinsman rack'd under King Harry,—
But do not e'er betray them! Promise me!

Babington.
But for the parable I made anon,
Of hardware and poor porcelain, I would promise.

Alice.
See, I am made of porcelain, since I fall,
And falling, break; and broken, cease to be
A thing of any worth! Here, read this letter,
And see how I had fallen for your sake,
That you might rise the stronger to subdue
The powers of evil!

[Shows the letter she had written to him.
Babington.
Ha! you would have gone
With me, your evil genius, to perdition?
Yes, I believ'd it, and so counted strange
Your obstinate refusal, since till then
I seemed to lead mankind; I know not wherefore,
Nor wholly whither, yet I had a mission,
Methinks, to influence the mass of men,
So wonder'd at a woman like yourself
Saying me nay so stoutly; ne'ertheless
You would have gone had I not gone the first.
History will know me as a leader of men!

Alice
(sorrowfully).
A leader? a deluder of yourself,
Whilst those who lov'd you followed in your track.
Yes, Anthony, this had I done for you
And love of something that seem'd once like love,
Yet heaven will'd it otherwise.

Babington
(tenderly).
Poor child,
And so you lov'd me!

Alice.
What was once my love
Methinks I could not help but love a little,
Tho' only as a spirit hovers o'er
Some memory of earth. Betwixt us two
Naught could arise that would not seem a ghost,
A guilty shrinking phantom! You are married;
How may I serve your wife?

Babington.
You are an angel,
Which, had I known the earlier, man nor devil
Had lured me from you! My unhappy wife
Knows naught of this, but nursing on her knee
Her child so soon left desolate, oft looks,
I doubt not, at the noisy ticking clock
In the old home in Derbyshire. (The clock
That notes weeks, months, and changes of the moon,
The which these eyes of mine may note no more!)
And listens for a step that cometh not.
I have been traitor to her love and yours!

Alice.
I will go to her, set your mind at rest.
And afterwards—Ah, God! it breaks my heart
To think of afterwards!

[Covers her face with her hands.
Babington.
You will be friend and comforter to her.
And you will whisper to my hapless child
Pointing towards the radiance of the sun)
“I once knew one who strove to scale blue heaven
To grasp some such far glory, and who fell
The lower that he strove to climb so high.”

Alice.
Dare I to look upon the face of one,
Your child and yet not mine, some such sad words
I'll say to him, so I can school my voice,
Remembering his father.

Babington.
Thank you, Alice.
You seem an angel on the earth, and yet
Your acts die with you, like mere ashes and dust;
Mine will live after me, tho' lamentable,
Bearing no blossom, blighted in the bud,
Still, men will speak of me.

Alice.
And this was then,
Poor cousin, your high glory, grasping which
You fell to earth, that worms might blate of worms.
A small ambition!

Babington.
Nay, I know this now—
Or partly know it—once it seem'd good cheer
To think that men should name me after death.
Blowing my trumpet with fine flourish of praise.
But now, I fear me, nothing brings good cheer
To deaf gray ashes lying under ground.

Alice.
Except God's grace.

Babington.
E'en this comes not to us,
As in the memorable days of old
Unto the saints. Vainly, in these sad times,
We wait the guiding-finger from on high.
That faith should live at all, I marvel me.
And yet mine flourish'd fresh and green till now.

Alice.
I pray that it may flourish to the end.

Babington.
“The end!” Is this the end—the bitter end?

Alice.
Nay, the beginning of a better life.

[Sobbing.
Babington.
Thus this life ends, as other men begin
To spin a tangled spider's web of errors,
Wherein to trap themselves! My web is wove.
New aspirations, new astonishments,
New desolation!

Alice.
Yes, new desolation—
Tho' mostly to the desolate who wait—
Seeing but emptiness where once was life,
With hope and promise of long prosp'rous years!

Babington.
After me, Alice, shall come other men.
There will be births and deaths throughout the earth,
With constant sound of merry marriage-bells,
And solemn-sounding requiems; but these
(The ringing in and out of human kind,
E'en in the space that should have been my day)
I shall not hear. A dead man lying deaf,
Or hearing other music! Not for me
Will Spring's winds blow, to scatter wantonly
White rings of hawthorn blossom on the sward,
As Summer glows to meet her! Yet all these
Have never seem'd so fair to me as now.
Time was, I did not value them enough,
And now, time is to leave them. Unto you,
And these, farewell! Maybe such things wax small
Before God's promise. I shall know ere long,
Yet may not come to tell you.

Alice.
One thing more—
The letter that you were to write the queen,
Suing for pardon?

Babington.
I have not the heart,
The courage, or the cowardice to write it.
And then of what avail? Here in the dark,
The vision of my blinded intellect
Seems quicken'd, like the keen eyes of a cat,
To see the things that heretofore were hid.
I see for future safety to the realm,
The queen must hang me.

Alice.
Nay, the queen is kind,
I hear that what we common-folk consider
Her alternations, or of hot or cold,
Of kind or cruel, are but heart and sense
Waging internal war. She is the child
Of one who suffer'd here, upon the block,
Not many paces off. The queen is kind.

Babington
(proudly).
How can I grovel in the dust to one
Whose death I planned?—of whom but some days past
Had I but heard she ceased to live and breathe
I had flung up my cap and shouted thus,
“Long live Queen Mary!”

Alice
(alarmed).
Nay, nay! not so loud!
See, here are, roughly scrawl'd, some few poor words,
Written by one who surely is no scholar,
But one who'd die to save you. Set your name
Here at the end.
[Babington makes a movement meaning refusal.
Will you be merciless
Even to friends? Then Heaven help your foes,
So you had pow'r to harm them!

Babington.
Let me read.
[Reads the paper which is handed to him by Alice.

“Most gracious Sovereign,—If either bitter traces, or

pensive contrite heart, and doleful sighs of a wretched
sinner, might work any pity in your royal breast, I
would wring out from my drained eyes as much
blood as, in bewraying my dreary tragedy, should
lament my fall, and somewhat, no doubt, move you
to compassion; but since there is no proportion
between the quality of my crime and any humane
consideration, show, sweet queen, some miracle on
a wretch that lieth prostrate in your prison most
grievously bewailing his offence—” [To Alice.]

Nay, do not say, “most grievously bewailing.” Is
not bewailing ample?

Alice.
Let it stand,
“Most grievously bewailing his offence.”

Babington
(continuing to read).

“and imploring such comfort at your anointed hands
—” [To Alice.]
“Anointed,” nay, “anointed”
shall not stand. The queen is excommunicate!

Alice.
Remember
That she was crown'd and christen'd in your faith;
Nay, some do say it still lurks in her heart.

Babington
(continuing to read).

“as my poor wife's misfortune doth beg, my child's
innocency doth crave, my guiltless family doth wish,
and my heinous treachery least deserves. So shall
your divine mercy make your glory shine far above
all princes, as my most horrible practices are most
detestable amongst your best subjects; with whom
that you may long live and happily govern, I beseech
the Mercy-Master to grant for His sweet Son's sake.
—Your majesty's unfortunate, because disloyal, subject.”

Alice.
And now your signature.

Gaoler
(entering, having heard a shout).

What was that shout I heard anon? It sounded
strangely like sedition. Moreover, some of the other
gentlemen hearing it, have taken up the cry. Rest
content, sir, with the evil you have wrought, and let
us have no rioting here. Why, the Tower is full
of them that have followed your evil counsel! They
are coming to us from all parts of England for a
lodging.

Alice.

Good master, this is no new sedition; 'tis but a
paper asking the queen's pardon. This gentleman
desires that he may sign it.

Gaoler.

He may sign it, so it is afterwards seen by those
in authority.

Alice.

Oh, it is as open as the day, the whole world may
see it.

Babington.

Alice, you master me, give me the paper; though
'tis but as a last straw to a drowning man.

Gaoler.

Two other gentlemen have written their confessions.

Babington
(taking the pen).

See then the force of ensample, and how men will
follow one after another like a flock of sheep making
for a gap in the hedge. I sign, but as I sign I know
I am a dead man. Nay, I sign with all the recklessness
of one that is dead already.

[Signs the paper.
Gaoler.
Mistress, the time is up, and you remember
'Twas only by a great and special grace
You talked with Mr. Babington.

Alice
(sadly).
I know it,
And thank the pow'rs that be for such good grace.
God bless you, Anthony!

Babington.
God bless you, Alice!
When sick men bless they say their words come true.
I am one privileged by fate to count
E'en as a sick man very nigh to death.—
From this dim border-land I spread my hands
Towards the woman that was never mine,
And say “God bless her!” as a dead man speaks,
Pale, passionless, the red blood in his veins
Frozen to stagnant ice; God gives me grace
To pray He bless you, e'en if with another,
Some worthier man than I. Once more, farewell!

[Alice slowly leaves the prison, in tears, her hands covering her face.