ACT II

Previous
SCENE.—The Library

Enter LORD TRESHAM, hastily

TRESHAM. This way! In, Gerard, quick!
[As GERARD enters, TRESHAM secures the door.]
Now speak! or, wait—
I'll bid you speak directly.
[Seats himself.]
Now repeat
Firmly and circumstantially the tale
You just now told me; it eludes me; either
I did not listen, or the half is gone
Away from me. How long have you lived here?
Here in my house, your father kept our woods
Before you?

GERARD. —As his father did, my lord.
I have been eating, sixty years almost,
Your bread.

TRESHAM. Yes, yes. You ever were of all
The servants in my father's house, I know,
The trusted one. You'll speak the truth.

GERARD. I'll speak
God's truth. Night after night...

TRESHAM. Since when?

GERARD. At least
A month—each midnight has some man access
To Lady Mildred's chamber.

TRESHAM. Tush, "access"—
No wide words like "access" to me!

GERARD. He runs
Along the woodside, crosses to the South,
Takes the left tree that ends the avenue...

TRESHAM. The last great yew-tree?

GERARD. You might stand upon
The main boughs like a platform. Then he...

TRESHAM. Quick!

GERARD. Climbs up, and, where they lessen at the top,
—I cannot see distinctly, but he throws,
I think—for this I do not vouch—a line
That reaches to the lady's casement—

TRESHAM. —Which
He enters not! Gerard, some wretched fool
Dares pry into my sister's privacy!
When such are young, it seems a precious thing
To have approached,—to merely have approached,
Got sight of the abode of her they set
Their frantic thoughts upon. Ha does not enter?
Gerard?

GERARD. There is a lamp that's full i' the midst.
Under a red square in the painted glass
Of Lady Mildred's...

TRESHAM. Leave that name out! Well?
That lamp?

GERARD. Is moved at midnight higher up
To one pane—a small dark-blue pane; he waits
For that among the boughs: at sight of that,
I see him, plain as I see you, my lord,
Open the lady's casement, enter there...

TRESHAM. —And stay?

GERARD. An hour, two hours.

TRESHAM. And this you saw
Once?—twice?—quick!

GERARD. Twenty times.

TRESHAM. And what brings you
Under the yew-trees?

GERARD. The first night I left
My range so far, to track the stranger stag
That broke the pale, I saw the man.

TRESHAM. Yet sent
No cross-bow shaft through the marauder?

GERARD. But
He came, my lord, the first time he was seen,
In a great moonlight, light as any day,
FROM Lady Mildred's chamber.

TRESHAM [after a pause]. You have no cause
—Who could have cause to do my sister wrong?

GERARD. Oh, my lord, only once—let me this once
Speak what is on my mind! Since first I noted
All this, I've groaned as if a fiery net
Plucked me this way and that—fire if I turned
To her, fire if I turned to you, and fire
If down I flung myself and strove to die.
The lady could not have been seven years old
When I was trusted to conduct her safe
Through the deer-herd to stroke the snow-white fawn
I brought to eat bread from her tiny hand
Within a month. She ever had a smile
To greet me with—she... if it could undo
What's done, to lop each limb from off this trunk...
All that is foolish talk, not fit for you—
I mean, I could not speak and bring her hurt
For Heaven's compelling. But when I was fixed
To hold my peace, each morsel of your food
Eaten beneath your roof, my birth-place too,
Choked me. I wish I had grown mad in doubts
What it behoved me do. This morn it seemed
Either I must confess to you or die:
Now it is done, I seem the vilest worm
That crawls, to have betrayed my lady.

TRESHAM. No—
No, Gerard!

GERARD. Let me go!

TRESHAM. A man, you say:
What man? Young? Not a vulgar hind? What dress?

GERARD. A slouched hat and a large dark foreign cloak
Wraps his whole form; even his face is hid;
But I should judge him young: no hind, be sure!

TRESHAM. Why?

GERARD. He is ever armed: his sword projects
Beneath the cloak.

TRESHAM. Gerard,—I will not say
No word, no breath of this!

GERARD. Thank, thanks, my lord!
[Goes.]

TRESHAM [paces the room. After a pause].
Oh, thoughts absurd!—as with some monstrous fact
Which, when ill thoughts beset us, seems to give
Merciful God that made the sun and stars,
The waters and the green delights of earth,
The lie! I apprehend the monstrous fact—
Yet know the maker of all worlds is good,
And yield my reason up, inadequate
To reconcile what yet I do behold—
Blasting my sense! There's cheerful day outside:
This is my library, and this the chair
My father used to sit in carelessly
After his soldier-fashion, while I stood
Between his knees to question him: and here
Gerard our grey retainer,—as he says,
Fed with our food, from sire to son, an age,—
Has told a story—I am to believe!
That Mildred... oh, no, no! both tales are true,
Her pure cheek's story and the forester's!
Would she, or could she, err—much less, confound
All guilts of treachery, of craft, of... Heaven
Keep me within its hand!—I will sit here
Until thought settle and I see my course.
Avert, oh God, only this woe from me!
[As he sinks his head between his arms on the table,
GUENDOLEN'S voice is heard at the door.]

Lord Tresham!
[She knocks.]
Is Lord Tresham there?

[TRESHAM, hastily turning, pulls down the first book
above him and opens it.]

TRESHAM. Come in!
[She enters.]
Ha, Guendolen!—good morning.

GUENDOLEN. Nothing more?

TRESHAM. What should I say more?

GUENDOLEN. Pleasant question! more?
This more. Did I besiege poor Mildred's brain
Last night till close on morning with "the Earl,"
"The Earl"—whose worth did I asseverate
Till I am very fain to hope that... Thorold,
What is all this? You are not well!

TRESHAM. Who, I?
You laugh at me.

GUENDOLEN. Has what I'm fain to hope,
Arrived then? Does that huge tome show some blot
In the Earl's 'scutcheon come no longer back
Than Arthur's time?

TRESHAM. When left you Mildred's chamber?

GUENDOLEN. Oh, late enough, I told you! The main thing
To ask is, how I left her chamber,—sure,
Content yourself, she'll grant this paragon
Of Earls no such ungracious...

TRESHAM. Send her here!

GUENDOLEN. Thorold?

TRESHAM. I mean—acquaint her, Guendolen,
—But mildly!

GUENDOLEN. Mildly?

TRESHAM. Ah, you guessed aright!
I am not well: there is no hiding it.
But tell her I would see her at her leisure—
That is, at once! here in the library!
The passage in that old Italian book
We hunted for so long is found, say, found—
And if I let it slip again... you see,
That she must come—and instantly!

GUENDOLEN. I'll die
Piecemeal, record that, if there have not gloomed
Some blot i' the 'scutcheon!

TRESHAM. Go! or, Guendolen,
Be you at call,—With Austin, if you choose,—
In the adjoining gallery! There go!
[GUENDOLEN goes.]
Another lesson to me! You might bid
A child disguise his heart's sore, and conduct
Some sly investigation point by point
With a smooth brow, as well as bid me catch
The inquisitorial cleverness some praise.
If you had told me yesterday, "There's one
You needs must circumvent and practise with,
Entrap by policies, if you would worm
The truth out: and that one is—Mildred!" There,
There—reasoning is thrown away on it!
Prove she's unchaste... why, you may after prove
That she's a poisoner, traitress, what you will!
Where I can comprehend nought, nought's to say,
Or do, or think. Force on me but the first
Abomination,—then outpour all plagues,
And I shall ne'er make count of them.

Enter MILDRED

MILDRED. What book
Is it I wanted, Thorold? Guendolen
Thought you were pale; you are not pale. That book?
That's Latin surely.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Clyx.com


Top of Page
Top of Page