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?