Aurora Leigh/Fourth Book
FOURTH BOOK
They met still sooner.’Twas a year from thenceWhen Lucy Gresham, the sick semptress girl,Who sewed by Marian’s chair so still and quick,And leant her head upon the back to coughMore freely when, the mistress turning round,The others took occasion to laugh out,—Gave up at last.Among the workers, spokeA bold girl with black eyebrows and red lips,—‘You know the news?Who’s dying, do you think?Our Lucy Gresham.I expected itAs little as Nell Hart’s wedding.Blush not, Nell,Thy curls be red enough without thy cheeks;And, some day, there’ll be found a man to doteOn red curls.—Lucy Gresham swooned last night,Dropped sudden in the street while going home;And now the baker says, who took her upAnd laid her by her grandmother in bed,He’ll give her a week to die in.Pass the silk.Let’s hope he gave her a loaf too, within reach,For otherwise they’ll starve before they die, That funny pair of bedfellows! Miss Bell,I’ll thank you for the scissors. The old croneIs paralytic—that’s the reason whyOur Lucy’s thread went faster than her breath,Which went too quick, we all know. Marian Erle!Why, Marian Erle, you’re not the fool to cry?Your tears spoil Lady Waldemar’s new dress,You piece of pity!’Marian rose up straight,And, breaking through the talk and through the work,Went outward, in the face of their surprise,To Lucy’s home, to nurse her back to lifeOr down to death. She knew by such an act,All place and grace were forfeit in the house,Whose mistress would supply the missing handWith necessary, not inhuman haste,And take no blame. But pity, too, had dues:She could not leave a solitary soulTo founder in the dark, while she sate stillAnd lavished stitches on a lady’s hemAs if no other work were paramount.‘Why, God,’ thought Marian, ‘has a missing handThis moment; Lucy wants a drink, perhaps.Let others miss me! never miss me, God!’
So Marian sate by Lucy’s bed, contentWith duty, and was strong, for recompense,To hold the lamp of human love arm-highTo catch the death-strained eyes and comfort them,Until the angels, on the luminous side Of death, had got theirs ready. And she said,When Lucy thanked her sometimes, called her kind,It touched her strangely. ‘Marian Erle called kind!What, Marian, beaten and sold, who could not die!’Tis verily good fortune to be kind.Ah, you,’ she said, ‘who are born to such a grace,Be sorry for the unlicensed class, the poor,Reduced to think the best good fortune meansThat others, simply, should be kind to them.’
From sleep to sleep while Lucy slid awaySo gently, like a light upon a hill,Of which none names the moment when it goes,Though all see when ’tis gone,—a man came inAnd stood beside the bed. The old idiot wretchScreamed feebly, like a baby overlain,‘Sir, sir, you won't mistake me for the corpse?Don't look at me, sir! never bury me!Although I lie here, I’m alive as you,Except my legs and arms,—I eat and drink,And understand,—(that you’re the gentlemanWho fits the funerals up, Heaven speed you, sir,)And certainly I should be livelier stillIf Lucy here . . sir, Lucy is the corpse . .Had worked more properly to buy me wine:But Lucy, sir, was always slow at work,I shan't lose much by Lucy. Marian Erle,Speak up and show the gentleman the corpse.’
And then a voice said, ‘Marian Erle.’ She rose; It was the hour for angels—there, stood hers!She scarcely marvelled to see Romney Leigh.As light November snows to empty nests,As grass to graves, as moss to mildewed stones,As July suns to ruins, through the rents,As ministering spirits to mourners, through a loss,As Heaven itself to men, through pangs of death,He came uncalled wherever grief had come.‘And so,’ said Marian Erle, ‘we meet anew,’And added softly, ‘so, we shall not part.’
He was not angry that she had left the houseWherein he placed her. Well—she had feared it mightHave vexed him. Also, when he found her setOn keeping, though the dead was out of sight,That half-dead, half-live body left behindWith cankerous heart and flesh,—which took your bestAnd cursed you for the little good it did,(Could any leave the bedrid wretch alone,So joyless, she was thankless even to God,Much less to you?) he did not say ’twas wellYet Marian thought he did not take it ill,—Since day by day he came, and, every day,She felt within his utterance and his eyesA closer, tenderer presence of the soul,Until at last he said, ‘We shall not part.’
On that same day, was Marian's work complete:She had smoothed the empty bed, and swept the floorOf coffin sawdust, set the chairs anew The dead had ended gossip in, and stoodIn that poor room so cold and orderly,The door-key in her hand, prepared to goAs they had, howbeit not their way. He spoke.
‘Dear Marian, of one clay God made us all,And though men push and poke and paddle in’t(As children play at fashioning dirt-pies)And call their fancies by the name of facts,Assuming difference, lordship, privilege,When all’s plain dirt,——they come back to it at lastThe first grave-digger proves it with a spade,And pats all even. Need we wait for this,You, Marian, and I, Romney?’She at that,Looked blindly in his face, as when one looksThrough drying autumn-rains to find the sky.He went on speaking.‘Marian, I being bornWhat men call noble, and you, issued fromThe noble people,—though the tyrannous swordWhich pierced Christ’s heart, has cleft the world in twain’Twixt class and class, opposing rich to poor,—Shall we keep parted? Not so. Let us leanAnd strain together rather, each to each,Compress the red lips of this gaping wound,As far as two souls can,—ay, lean and league,I, from my superabundance,—from your want,You,—joining in a protest ’gainst the wrongOn both sides!’— All the rest, he held her handIn speaking, which confused the sense of much;Her heart, against his words, beat out so thickThey might as well be written on the dustWhere some poor bird, escaping from hawk’s beak,Has dropped, and beats its shuddering wings,—the linesAre rubbed so,—yet ’twas something like to this,—‘That they two, standing at the two extremesOf social classes, had received one seal,Been dedicate and drawn beyond themselvesTo mercy and ministration,—he, indeed,Through what he knew, and she, through what she felt,He, by man’s conscience, she, by woman’s heart,Relinquishing their several ’vantage postsOf wealthy case and honourable toil,To work with God at love. And, since God willedThat, putting out his hand to touch this ark,He found a woman’s hand there, he’d acceptThe sign too, hold the tender fingers fast,And say, ‘My fellow-worker, be my wife!’
She told the tale with simple, rustic turns,—Strong leaps of meaning in her sudden eyesThat took the gaps of any imperfect phraseOf the unschooled speaker: I have rather writThe thing I understood so, than the thingI heard so. And I cannot render rightHer quick gesticulation, wild yet soft,Self-startled from the habitual mood she used,Half sad, half languid,—like dumb creatures (now A rustling bird, and now a wandering deer,Or squirrel against the oak-gloom flashing upHis sidelong burnished head, in just her wayOf savage spontaneity,) that stirAbruptly the green silence of the woods,And make it stranger, holier, more profound;As Nature's general heart confessed itselfOf life, and then fell backward on repose.
I kissed the lips that ended.—'So indeedHe loves you, Marian?''Loves me!' She looked upWith a child's wonder when you ask him firstWho made the sun—a puzzled blush, that grew,Then broke off in a rapid radiant smileOf sure solution. 'Loves me! he loves all,—And me, of course. He had not asked me elseTo work with him for ever, and be his wife.'
Her words reproved me. This perhaps was love—To have its hands too full of gifts to give,For putting out a hand to take a gift;To love so much, the perfect round of loveIncludes, in strictly conclusion, the being loved;As Eden-dew went up and fell again,Enough for watering Eden. ObviouslyShe had not thought about his love at all:The cataracts of her soul had poured themselvesAnd risen self-crowned in rainbow; would she askWho crowned her?—it sufficed that she was crowned. With women of my class, 'tis otherwise:We haggle for the small change of our gold,And so much love, accord, for so much love,Rialto-prices. Are we therefore wrong?If marriage be a contract, look to it then,Contracting parties should be equal, just;But if, a simple fealty on one side,A mere religion,—right to give, is all,And certain brides of Europe duly askTo mount the pile, as Indian widows do,The spices of their tender youth heaped up,The jewels of their gracious virtues worn,More gems, more glory,—to consume entireFor a living husband! as the man's alive,Not dead,—the woman's duty, by so much,Advanced in England, beyond Hindostan.
I sate there, musing, till she touched my handWith hers, as softly as a strange white birdShe feared to startle in touching. 'You are kind.But are you, peradventure, vexed at heartBecause your cousin takes me for a wife?I know I am not worthy—nay, in truth,I'm glad on't, since, for that, he chooses me.He likes the poor things of the world the best;I would not therefore, if I could, be rich.It pleasures him to stoop for buttercups;I would not be a rose upon the wallA queen might stop at, near the palace-door,To say to a courtier, 'Pluck that rose for me, 'It's prettier than the rest.' O Romney Leigh!I'd rather far be trodden by his foot,Than lie in a great queen's bosom.'Out of breathShe paused.'Sweet Marian, do you disavowThe roses with that face?'She dropt her headAs if the wind had caught that flower of her,And bent it in the garden,—then looked upWith grave assurance. 'Well, you think me bold!But so we all are, when we're praying to God.And if I'm bold—yet, lady, credit me,That, since I know myself for what I am,Much fitter for his handmaid than his wife,I'll prove the handmaid and the wife at once,Serve tenderly, and love obediently,And be a worthier mate, perhaps, than someWho are wooed in silk among their learned books;While I shall set myself to read his eyes,Till such grow plainer to me than the FrenchTo wisest ladies. Do you think I'll missA letter, in the spelling of his mind?No more than they do, when they sit and writeTheir flying words with flickering wild-fowl tails,Nor ever pause to ask how many ts,Should that be a y or i—they know't so well:I've seen them writing, when I brought a dressAnd waited,—floating out their soft white handsOn shining paper. But they're hard sometimes, For all those hands!—we’ve used out many nights,And worn the yellow daylight into shredsWhich flapped and shivered down our aching eyesTill night appeared more tolerable, justThat pretty ladies might look beautiful,Who said at last . . ‘You’re lazy in that house!‘You’re slow in sending home the work,—I count‘I’ve waited near an hour for’t.’ Pardon me—I do not blame them, madam, nor misprize;They are fair and gracious; ay, but not like you,Since none but you has Mister Leigh’s own bloodBoth noble and gentle,—and without it . . well,They are fair, I said; so fair, it scarce seems strangeThat, flashing out in any looking-glassThe wonder of their glorious brows and breasts,They are charmed so, they forget to look behindAnd mark how pale we’ve grown, we pitifulRemainders of the world. And so, perhaps,If Mister Leigh had chosen a wife from these,She might . . although he’s better than her best,And dearly she would know it . . steal a thoughtWhich should be all his, an eye-glance from his face,To plunge into the mirror opposite,In search of her own beauty’s pearl: while I. .Ah, dearest lady, serge will outweigh silkFor winter-wear, when bodies feel a-cold,And I’ll be a true wife to your cousin Leigh.’
Before I answered, he was there himself.I think he had been standing in the room, And listened probably to half her talk,Arrested, turned to stone,—as white as stone.Will tender sayings make men look so white?He loves her then profoundly.‘You are here,Aurora? Here I meet you!’—We clasped hands.
‘Even so, dear Romney. Lady WaldemarHas sent me in haste to find a cousin of mineWho shall be.’
‘Lady Waldemar is good.’
‘Here’s one, at least, who is good,’ I sighed and touchedPoor Marian’s happy head, as, doglike, sheMost passionately patient, waited on,A-tremble for her turn of greeting words;‘I’ve sat a full hour with your Marian Erle,And learnt the thing by heart,—and, from my heart,Am therefore competent to give you thanksFor such a cousin.’‘You accept at lastA gift from me, Aurora, without scorn?At last I please you?’—How his voice was changed!
‘You cannot please a woman against her will,And once you vexed me. Shall we speak of that?We’ll say, then, you were noble in it all,And I not ignorant—let it pass. And now,You please me, Romney, when you please yourself; So, please you, be fanatical in love,And I'm well pleased. Ah, cousin! at the old hall,Among the gallery portraits of our Leighs,We shall not find a sweeter signoryThan this pure forehead's.'Not a word he said.How arrogant men are!—Even philanthropists,Who try to take a wife up in the wayThey put down a subscription-cheque,—if onceShe turns and says, 'I will not tax you so,Most charitable sir,'—feel ill at ease,As though she had wronged them somehow. I supposeWe women should remember what we are,And not throw back an obolus inscribedWith Cæsar's image, lightly. I resumed.
'It strikes me, some of those sublime VandykesWere not too proud, to make good saints in heaven;And, if so, then they're not too proud to-dayTo bow down (now the ruffs are off their necks)And own this good, true, noble Marian, . . yours,And mine, I'll say!—For poets (bear the word)Half-poets even, are still whole democrats,—Oh, not that we're disloyal to the high,But loyal to the low, and cognisantOf the less scrutable majesties. For me,I comprehend your choice—I justifyYour right in choosing.''No, no, no' he sighed,With a sort of melancholy impatient scorn, As some grown man, who never had a child,Puts by some child who plays at being a man;—'You did not, do not, cannot comprehendMy choice, my ends, my motives, nor myself:No matter now—we'll let it pass, you say.I thank you for your generous cousinshipWhich helps this present; I accept for herYour favourable thoughts. We're fallen on days,We two, who are not poets, when to wedRequires less mutual love than common love,For two together to bear out at onceUpon the loveless many. Work in pairs,In galley-couplings or in marriage-rings,The difference lies in the honour, not the work,—And such we're bound to, I and she. But love,(You poets are benighted in this age;The hour's too late for catching even moths,You've gnats instead,) love!—love's fool-paradiseIs out of date, like Adam's. Set a swanTo swim the Trenton, rather than true loveTo float its fabulous plumage safely downThe cataracts of this loud transition-time,—Whose roar, for ever, henceforth, in my ears,Must keep me deaf to music.'There, I turnedAnd kissed poor Marian, out of discontent.The man had baffled, chafed me, till I flungFor refuge to the woman,—as, sometimes,Impatient of some crowded room's close smell,You throw a window open, and lean out To breathe a long breath, in the dewy night,And cool your angry forehead. She, at least,Was not built up, as walls are, brick by brick;Each fancy squared, each feeling ranged by line,The very heat of burning youth appliedTo indurate forms and systems! excellent bricks,A well-built wall,—which stops you on the road,And, into which, you cannot see an inchAlthough you beat your head against it—pshaw!
'Adieu,' I said, 'for this time, cousins both:And, cousin Romney, pardon me the word,Be happy!—oh, in some esoteric senseOf course!—I mean no harm in wishing well.Adieu, my Marian:—may she come to me,Dear Romney, and be married from my house?It is not part of your philosophyTo keep your bird upon the blackthorn?''Ay,'He answered, 'but it is:—I take my wifeDirectly from the people,—and she comes,As Austria's daughter to imperial France,Betwixt her eagles, blinking not her race,From Margaret's Court at garret-height, to meetAnd wed me at St. James's, nor put offHer gown of serge for that. The things we do,We do: we'll wear no mask, as if we blushed.'
'Dear Romney, you're the poet,' I replied,—But felt my smile too mournful for my word, And turned and went. Ay, masks, I thought,—bewareOf tragic masks, we tie before the glass,Uplifted on the cothurn half a yardAbove the natural stature! we would playHeroic parts to ourselves,—and end, perhaps,As impotently as Athenian wivesWho shrieked in fits at the Eumenides.
His foot pursued me down the stair. 'At least,You'll suffer me to walk with you beyondThese hideous streets, these graves, where men alive,Packed close with earthworms, burr unconsciouslyAbout the plague that slew them; let me go.The very women pelt their souls in mudAt any woman who walks here alone.How came you here alone?—you are ignorant.'
We had a strange and melancholy walk:The night came drizzling downward in dark rain;And, as we walked, the colour of the time,The act, the presence, my hand upon his arm,His voice in my ear, and mine to my own sense,Appeared unnatural. We talked modern books,And daily papers; Spanish marriage-schemes,And English climate—was't so cold last year?And will the wind change by to-morrow morn?Can Guizot stand? is London full? is tradeCompetitive? has Dickens turned his hingeA-pinch upon the fingers of the great?And are potatoes to grow mythical Like moly? will the apple die out too?Which way is the wind to-night? south-east? due east?We talked on fast, while every common wordSeemed tangled with the thunder at one end,And ready to pull down upon our headsA terror out of sight. And yet to pauseWere surelier mortal: we tore greedily upAll silence, all the innocent breathing -points,As if, like pale conspirators in haste,We tore up papers where our signaturesImperilled us to an ugly shame or death.
I cannot tell you why it was. 'Tis plainWe had not loved nor hated: wherefore dreadTo spill gunpowder on ground safe from fire?Perhaps we had lived too closely, to divergeSo absolutely: leave two clocks, they say,Wound up to different hours, upon one shelf,And slowly, through the interior wheels of each,The blind mechanic motion sets itselfA-throb, to feel out for the mutual time.It was not so with us, indeed. While heStruck midnight, I kept striking six at dawn,While he marked judgment, I, redemption-day;And such exception to a general law,Imperious upon inert matter even,Might make us, each to either insecure,A beckoning mystery, or a troubling fear.
I mind me, when we parted at the door, How strange his good-night sounded,—like good-nightBeside a deathbed, where the morrow's sunIs sure to come too late for more good days:—And all that night I thought . . 'Good-night,' said he.
And so, a month passed. Let me set it downAt once,—I have been wrong, I have been wrong.We are wrong always, when we think too muchOf what we think or are; albeit our thoughtsBe verily bitter as self-sacrifice,We're no less selfish. If we sleep on rocksOr roses, sleeping past the hour of noonWe're lazy. This I write against myself.I had done a duty in the visit paidTo Marian, and was ready otherwiseTo give the witness of my presence and nameWhenever she should marry.—Which, I thoughtSufficed. I even had cast into the scaleAn overweight of justice toward the match;The Lady Waldemar had missed her tool,Had broken it in the lock as being too straightFor a crooked purpose, while poor Marian ErleMissed nothing in my accents or my acts:I had not been ungenerous on the whole,Nor yet untender; so, enough. I feltTired, overworked: this marriage somewhat jarred;Or, if it did not, all the bridal noise . .The pricking of the map of life with pins,In schemes of . . 'Here we'll go,' and 'There we'll stay,'And 'Everywhere we'll prosper in our love,' Was scarce my business. Let them order it;Who else should care? I threw myself aside,As one who had done her work and shuts her eyesTo rest the better.I, who should have known,Forereckoned mischief! Where we disavowBeing keeper to our brother, we're his Cain.
I might have held that poor child to my heartA little longer! 'twould have hurt me muchTo have hastened by its beats the marriage day,And kept her safe meantime from tampering hands,Or, peradventure, traps? What drew me backFrom telling Romney plainly, the designsOf Lady Waldemar, as spoken outTo me . . me? had I any right, ay, right,With womanly compassion and reserveTo break the fall of woman's impudence?—To stand by calmly, knowing what I knew,And hear him call her good?Distrust that word.'There is none good save God,' said Jesus Christ.If He once, in the first creation-week,Called creatures good,—for ever, afterward,The Devil only has done it, and his heirs,The knaves who win so, and the fools who lose;The world's grown dangerous. In the middle age,I think they called malignant fays and impsGood people. A good neighbour, even in this,Is fatal sometimes,—cuts your morning up To mince-meat of the very smallest talk,Then helps to sugar her bohea at nightWith her reputation. I have known good wives,As chaste, or nearly so, as Potiphar's;And good, good mothers, who would use a childTo better an intrigue; good friends, beside.(Very good) who hung succinctly round your neckAnd sucked your breath, as cats are fabled to doBy sleeping infants. And we all have knownGood critics, who have stamped out poet's hopes;Good statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state;Good patriots, who for a theory, risked a causeGood kings, who disembowelled for a tax;Good popes, who brought all good to jeopardy;Good Christians, who sate still in easy chairs,And damned the general world for standing up.—Now, may the good God pardon all good men!
How bitterly I speak,—how certainlyThe innocent white milk in us is turned,By much persistent shining of the sun!Shake up the sweetest in us long enoughWith men, it drips to foolish curd, too sourTo feed the most untender of Christ's lambs.
I should have thought . . a woman of the worldLike her I'm meaning,—centre to herself,Who has wheeled on her own pivot half a lifeIn isolated self-love and self-will,As a windmill seen at distance radiating Its delicate white vans against the sky,So soft and soundless, simply beautiful,—Seen nearer . . what a roar and tear it makes,How it grinds and bruises! . . if she loves at last,Her love's a re-adjustment of self-love,No more; a need felt of another's useTo her one advantage,—as the mill wants grain,The fire wants fuel, the very wolf wants prey;And none of these is more unscrupulousThan such a charming woman when she loves.She'll not be thwarted by an obstacleSo trifling as . . her soul is, . . much less yours!—Is God a consideration?—she loves you,Not God; she will not flinch for him indeed:She did not for the Marchioness of Perth,When wanting tickets for the birthnight-ball.She loves you, sir, with passion, to lunacy;She loves you like her diamonds . . almost.Well,A month passed so, and then the notice came;On such a day the marriage at the church.I was not backward.Half St. Giles in friezeWas bidden to meet St. James in cloth of gold,And, after contract at the altar, passTo eat a marriage-feast on Hampstead Heath.Of course the people came in uncompelled,Lame, blind, and worse—sick, sorrowful, and worse,The humours of the peccant social woundAll pressed out, poured out upon Pimlico, Exasperating the unaccustomed airWith hideous interfusion: you'd supposeA finished generation, dead of plague,Swept outward from their graves into the sun,The moil of death upon them. What a sight!A holiday of miserable menIs sadder than a burial-day of kings.
They clogged the streets, they oozed into the churchIn a dark slow stream, like blood. To see that sight,The noble ladies stood up in their pews,Some pale for fear, a few as red for hate,Some simply curious, some just insolent,And some in wondering scorn,—'What next? what next?'These crushed their delicate rose-lips from the smileThat misbecame them in a holy place,With broidered hems of perfumed handkerchiefs;Those passed the salts with confidence of eyesAnd simultaneous shiver of moiré silk;While all the aisles, alive and black with heads,Crawled slowly toward the altar from the street,As bruised snakes crawl and hiss out of a holeWith shuddering involutions, swaying slowFrom right to left, and then from left to right,In pants and pauses. What an ugly crestOf faces, rose upon you everywhere,From that crammed mass! you did not usuallySee faces like them in the open day:They hide in cellars, not to make you madAs Romney Leigh is.—Faces?—O my God, We call those, faces? men's and women's . . ay,And children's;—babies, hanging like a ragForgotten on their mother's neck,—poor mouths.Wiped clean of mother's milk by mother's blowBefore they are taught her cursing. Faces . . phew,We'll call them vices festering to despairs,Or sorrows petrifying to vices: notA finger-touch of God left whole on them;All ruined, lost—the countenance worn outAs the garments, the will dissolute as the acts,The passions loose and draggling in the dirtTo trip the foot up at the first free step!—Those, faces! 'twas as if you had stirred up hellTo heave its lowest dreg-fiends uppermostIn fiery swirls of slime,—such strangled fronts,Such obdurate jaws were thrown up constantly,To twit you with your race, corrupt your blood,And grind to devilish colors all your dreamsHenceforth, . . though, haply, you should drop asleepBy clink of silver waters, in a museOn Raffael's mild Madonna of the Bird.
I've waked and slept through many nights and daysSince then,—but still that day will catch my breathLike a nightmare. There are fatal days, indeed,In which the fibrous years have taken rootSo deeply, that they quiver to their topsWhene'er you stir the dust of such a day.
My cousin met me with his eyes and hand, And then, with just a word, . . that 'Marian ErleWas coming with her bridesmaids presently,'Made haste to place me by the altar-stair,Where he and other noble gentlemenAnd high-born ladies, waited for the bride.
We waited. It was early: there was timeFor greeting, and the morning's compliment;And gradually a ripple of women's talkArose and fell, and tossed about a sprayOf English ss, soft as a silent hush,And, notwithstanding, quite as audibleAs louder phrases thrown out by the men.—'Yes really, if we've need to wait in church,We've need to talk there.'—'She? 'Tis Lady AyrIn blue—not purple! that's the dowager.'—'She looks as young.'—'She flirts as young, you mean!Why if you had seen her upon Thursday night,You'd call Miss Norris modest.'—'You again!I waltzed with you three hours back. Up at six,Up still at ten: scarce time to change one's shoes.I feel as white and sulky as a ghost,So pray don't speak to me, Lord Belcher.'—'No,I'll look at you instead, and it's enoughWhile you have that face.' 'In church, my lord! fie, fie!'—'Adair, you stayed for the Division?'—'LostBy one.' 'The devil it is! I'm sorry for't.And if I had not promised Mistress Grove' . .—'You might have kept your word to Liverpool.''Constituents must remember, after all, We're mortal.'—'We remind them of it.'—'Hark,The bride comes! Here she comes, in a stream of milk!'—'There? Dear, you are asleep still; don't you knowThe five Miss Granvilles? always dressed in whiteTo show they're ready to be married.'—'Lower!The aunt is at your elbow.'—'Lady Maud,Did Lady Waldemar tell you she had seenThis girl of Leigh's?' 'No,—wait! 'twas Mrs. Brookes,Who told me Lady Waldemar told her—No, 'twasn't Mrs. Brookes.'—'She's pretty?'—'Who?Mrs.Brookes? Lady Waldemar?'—'How hot!Pray is't the law to-day we're not to breathe?You're treading on my shawl—I thank you, sir.'—'They say the bride's a mere child, who can't read,But knows the things she shouldn't, with wide-awakeGreat eyes. I'd go through fire to look at her.'—'You do, I think.'—'and Lady Waldemar(You see her; sitting close to Romney Leigh;How beautiful she looks, a little flushed!)Has taken up the girl, and organisedLeigh's folly. Should I have come here, you suppose,Except she'd asked me?'—'She'd have served him moreBy marrying him herself.''Ah—there she comes,The bride, at last!''Indeed, no. Past eleven.She puts off her patched petticoat to-dayAnd puts on May-fair manners, so beginsBy setting us to wait.'—'Yes, yes, this LeighWas always odd; it's in the blood, I think; His father's uncle's cousin's second sonWas, was . . you understand me—and for him,He's stark!—has turned quite lunatic uponThis modern question of the poor—the poor:An excellent subject when you're moderate;You've seen Prince Albert's model lodging-house?Does honour to his royal highness. Good:But would he stop his carriage in CheapsideTo shake a common fellow by the fistWhose name was . . Shakspeare? no. We draw a line,And if we stand not by our order, weIn England, we fall headlong. Here's a sight,—A hideous sight, a most indecent sight,—My wife would come, sir, or I had kept her back.By heaven, sir, when poor Damiens' trunk and limbsWere torn by horses, women of the courtStood by and stared, exactly as to-dayOn this dismembering of society,With pretty troubled faces.''Now, at last.She comes now.''Where? who sees? you push me, sir,Beyond the point of what is mannerly.You're standing, madam, on my second flounce—I do beseech you.''No—it's not the bride.Half-past eleven. How late! the bridegroom, mark,Gets anxious and goes out.''And as I said . .These Leighs! our best blood running in the rut! It's something awful. We had pardoned himA simple misalliance, got up asideFor a pair of sky-blue eyes; our House of LordsHas winked at such things, and we've all been young.But here's an inter-marriage reasoned out,A contract (carried boldly to the light,To challenge observation, pioneerGood acts by a great example) 'twixt the extremesOf martyrised society,—on the left,The well-born,—on the right, the merest mob.To treat as equals!—'tis anarchical!It means more than it says—'tis damnable!Why, sir, we can't have even our coffee good,Unless we strain it.''Here, Miss Leigh!''Lord Howe,You're Romney's friend. What's all this waiting for?'
'I cannot tell. The bride has lost her head(And way, perhaps!) to prove her sympathyWith the bridegroom.''What,—you also, disapprove!'
'Oh I approve of nothing in the world,'He answered; 'not of you, still less of me,Nor even of Romney—though he's worth us both.We're all gone wrong. The tune in us is lost:And whistling in back alleys to the moon,Will never catch it.'Let me draw Lord Howe; A born aristocrat, bred radical,And educated socialist, who stillGoes floating, on traditions of his kind,Across the theoretic flood from France,—Though, like a drenched Noah on a rotten deck,Scarce safer for his place there. He, at least,Will never land on Ararat, he knows,To recommence the world on the old plan:Indeed, he thinks, said world had better end;He sympathises rather with the fishOutside, than with the drowned paired beasts withinWho cannot couple again or multiply:And that's the sort of Noah he is, Lord Howe.He never could be anything complete,Except a loyal, upright gentleman,A liberal landlord, graceful diner-out,And entertainer more than hospitable,Whom authors dine with and forget the port.Whatever he believes, and it is much,But no-wise certain . . now here and now there, . .He still has sympathies beyond his creed,Diverting him from action. In the House,No party counts upon him, and all praise:All like his books too, (for he has written books)Which, good to lie beside a bishop's chair,So oft outreach themselves with jets of fireAt which the foremost of the progressistsMay warm audacious hands in passing by.—Of stature over-tall, lounging for ease;Light hair, that seems to carry a wind in it, And eyes that, when they look on you, will leanTheir whole weight half in indolence, and halfIn wishing you unmitigated good,Until you know not if to flinch from himOr thank him.—'Tis Lord Howe.'We're all gone wrong,'Said he, 'and Romney, that dear friend of ours,Is no-wise right. There's one true thing on earth;That's love! He takes it up, and dresses it,And acts a play with it, as Hamlet did,To show what cruel uncles we have been,And how we should be uneasy in our minds,While he, Prince Hamlet, weds a pretty maid(Who keeps us too long waiting, we'll confess)By symbol, to instruct us formallyTo fill the ditches up 'twixt class and class,And live together in phalansteries.What then?—he's mad, our Hamlet! clap his play,And bind him.''Ah, Lord Howe, this spectaclePulls stronger at us than the Dane's. See there!The crammed aisles heave and strain and steam with life—Dear Heaven, what life!''Why, yes,—a poet sees;Which makes him different from a common man.I, too, see somewhat, though I cannot sing;I should have been a poet, only thatMy mother took fright at the ugly world,And bore me tongue-tied. If you'll grant me nowThat Romney gives us a fine actor-piece To make us merry on his marriage-morn,—The fable's worse than Hamlet's, I'll concedeThe terrible people, old and poor and blind,Their eyes eat out with plague and povertyFrom seeing beautiful and cheerful sights,We'll liken to a brutalized King Lear,Led out,—by no means to clear scores with wrongs—His wrongs are so far back, . . he has forgot;All's past like youth; but just to witness hereA simple contract,—he, upon his side,And Regan with her sister GonerilAnd all the dappled courtiers and court-fools,On their side. Not that any of these would sayThey're sorry, neither. What is done, is done.And violence is now turned privilege,As cream turns cheese, if buried long enough.What could such lovely ladies have to doWith the old man there, in those ill-odorous rags,Except to keep the wind-side of him? LearIs flat and quiet, as a decent grave;He does not curse his daughters in the least.Be these his daughters? Lear is thinking ofHis porridge chiefly . . is it getting coldAt Hampstead? will the ale be served in pots?Poor Lear, poor daughters? Bravo, Romney's play?'
A murmur and a movement drew around;A naked whisper touched us. Something wrong!What's wrong! That black crowd, as an overstrainedCord, quivered in vibrations, and I saw . . Was that his face I saw? . . his . . Romney Leigh's . .Which tossed a sudden horror like a spongeInto all eyes,—while himself stood white uponThe topmost altar-stair, and tried to speak,And failed, and lifted higher above his headA letter, . . as a man who drowns and gasps.
'My brothers, bear with me! I am very weak.I meant but only good. Perhaps I meantToo proudly,—and God snatched the circumstanceAnd changed it therefore. There's no marriage—noneShe leaves me,—she departs,—she disappears,—I lose her. Yet I never forced her 'ay'To have her 'no' so cast into my teethIn manner of an accusation, thus.My friends, you are all dismissed. Go, eat and drinkAccording to the programme,—and farewell!'
He ended. There was silence in the church;We heard a baby sucking in its sleepAt the farthest end of the aisle. Then spoke a man,'Now, look to it, coves, that all the beef and drinkBe not filched from us like the other fun;For beer's spilt easier than a woman is!This gentry is not honest with the poor;They bring us up, to trick us.'—'Go it, Jim,'A woman screamed back,—'I'm a tender soul;I never banged a child at two years oldAnd drew blood from him, but I sobbed for itNext moment,—and I've had a plague of seven. I'm tender; I've no stomach even for beef.Until I know about the girl that's lost,That's killed, mayhap. I did misdoubt, at first,The fine lord meant no good by her, or us.He, maybe, got the upper hand of herBy holding up a wedding-ring, and then . .A choking finger on her throat, last night,And just a clever tale to keep us still,As she is, poor lost innocent. 'Disappear!'Who ever disappears except a ghost?And who believes a story of a ghost?I ask you,—would a girl go off, insteadOf staying to be married? a fine tale!A wicked man, I say, a wicked man!For my part I would rather starve on ginThan make my dinner on his beef and beer.'—At which a cry rose up—'We'll have our rights.We'll have the girl, the girl! Your ladies thereAre married safely and smoothly every day,And she shall not drop through into a trapBecause she's poor and of the people: shame!We'll have no tricks played off by gentlefolks;We'll see her righted.'Through the rage and roarI heard the broken words which Romney flungAmong the turbulent masses, from the groundHe held still, with his masterful pale face—As huntsmen throw the ration to the pack,Who, falling on it headlong, dog on dogIn heaps of fury, rend it, swallow it up With yelling hound jaws,—his indignant words,His piteous words, his most pathetic words,Whereof I caught the meaning here and thereBy his gesture . . torn in morsels, yelled across,And so devoured. From end to end, the churchRocked round us like the sea in storm, and thenBroke up like the earth in earthquake. Men cried out'Police!'—and women stood and shrieked for God,Or dropt and swooned; or, like a herd of deer,(For whom the black woods suddenly grow alive,Unleashing their wild shadows down the windTo hunt the creatures into corners, backAnd forward) madly fled, or blindly fell,Trod screeching underneath the feet of thoseWho fled and screeched.The last sight left to meWas Romney's terrible calm face aboveThe tumult!—the last sound was 'Pull him down!Strike—Kill him!' Stretching my unreasoning arms,As men in dreams, who vainly interpose'Twixt gods and their undoing, with a cryI struggled to precipitate myselfHead-foremost to the rescue of my soulIn that white face, . . till some one caught me back,And so the world went out,—I felt no more.
What followed, was told after by Lord Howe,Who bore me senseless from the strangling crowdIn church and street, and then returned aloneTo see the tumult quelled. The men of law Had fallen as thunder on a roaring fire,And made all silent,—while the people’s smokePassed eddying slowly from the emptied aisles.
Here ’s Marian’s letter, which a ragged childBrought running, just as Romney at the porchLooked out expectant of the bride. He sentThe letter to me by his friend Lord HoweSome two hours after, folded in a sheetOn which his well-known hand had left a word.Here ’s Marian’s letter.‘Noble friend, dear saintBe patient with me. Never think me vile,Who might to-morrow morning be your wifeBut that I loved you more than such a name.Farewell, my Romney. Let me write it once,—My Romney.''Tis so pretty a coupled word,I have no heart to pluck it with a blot.We say ‘My God’ sometimes, upon our knees,Who is not therefore vexed: so bear with it . .And me. I know I’m foolish, weak, and vain;Yet most of all I’m angry with myselfFor losing your last footstep on the stair,The last time of your coming,—yesterday!The very first time I lost step of yours,(Its sweetness comes the next to what you speak)But yesterday sobs took me by the throat,And cut me off from music.‘Mister Leigh, You'll set me down as wrong in many things.You've praised me, sir, for truth,—and now you'll learnI had not courage to be rightly true.I once began to tell you how she came,The woman . . and you stared upon the floorIn one of your fixed thoughts . . which put me outFor that day. After, some one spoke of me,So wisely, and of you, so tenderly,Persuading me to silence for your sake . . .Well, well! it seems this moment I was wrongIn keeping back from telling you the truth:There might be truth betwixt us two, at least,If nothing else. And yet 'twas dangerous.Suppose a real angel came from heavenTo live with men and women! he'd go mad,If no considerate hand should tie a blindAcross his piercing eyes. 'Tis thus with you:You see us too much in your heavenly light;I always thought so, angel,—and indeedThere's danger that you beat yourself to deathAgainst the edges of this alien world,In some divine and fluttering pity.'YesIt would be dreadful for a friend of yours,To see all England thrust you out of doorsAnd mock you from the windows. You might say,Or think (that's worse), 'There's some one in the houseI miss and love still.' Dreadful!'Very kind,I pray you mark, was Lady Waldemar. She came to see me nine times, rather ten—So beautiful, she hurts me like the dayLet suddenly on sick eyes.'Most kind of all,Your cousin!—ah, most like you! Ere you cameShe kissed me mouth to mouth: I felt her soulDip through her serious lips in holy fire.God help me, but it made me arrogant;I almost told her that you would not loseBy taking me to wife: though, ever since,I've pondered much a certain thing she asked . .'He love's you, Marian?' . . in a sort of mildDerisive sadness . . as a mother asksHer babe, 'You'll touch that star, you think?''Farewell!I know I never touched it.'This is worst:Babes grow, and lose the hope of things above;A silver threepence sets them leaping high—But no more stars! mark that.'I've writ all night,And told you nothing. God, if I could die,And let this letter break off innocentJust here! But no—for your sake . .'Here's the last:I never could be happy as your wife,I never could be harmless as your friend,I never will look more into your face,Till God says, 'Look!' I charge you, seek me not,Nor vex yourself with lamentable thoughts That peradventure I have come to grief;Be sure I'm well, I'm merry, I'm at ease,But such a long way, long way, long way off,I think you'll find me sooner in my grave;And that's my choice, observe. For what remains,An over-generous friend will care for me,And keep me happy . . happier . .'There's a blot!This ink runs thick . . we light girls lightly weep . .And keep me happier . . was the thing to say, . .Than as your wife I could be!—O, my star,My saint, my soul! for surely you're my soul, Through whom God touched me! I am not so lostI cannot thank you for the good you did,The tears you stopped, which fell down bitterly,Like these—the times you made me weep for joyAt hoping I should learn to write your notesAnd save the tiring of your eyes, at night;And most for that sweet thrice you kissed my lipsAnd said ‘Dear Marian.’‘’Twould be hard to read,This letter, for a reader half as learn'd,But you'll be sure to master it, in spiteOf ups and downs. My hand shakes, I am blind,I'm poor at writing, at the best,—and yetI tried to make my gs the way you showed.Farewell—Christ love you.—Say 'Poor Marian' now.'
Poor Marian!—wanton Marian!—was it so,Or so? For days, her touching, foolish lines We mused on with conjectural fantasy,As if some riddle of a summer-cloudOn which some one tries unlike similitudesOf now a spotted Hydra-skin cast off,And now a screen of carven ivoryThat shuts the heaven's conventual secrets upFrom mortals over-bold. We sought the sense:She loved him so perhaps, (such words mean love,)That, worked on by some shrewd perfidious tongue,(And then I thought of Lady Waldemar)She left him, not to hurt him; or perhapsShe loved one in her class,—or did not love,But mused upon her wild bad tramping life,Until the free blood fluttered at her heart,And black bread eaten by the road-side hedgeSeemed sweeter than being put to Romney's schoolOf philanthropical self-sacrifice,Irrevocably.—Girls are girls, beside,Thought I, and like a wedding by one rule.You seldom catch these birds, except with chaff:They feel it almost an immoral thingTo go out and be married in broad day,Unless some winning special flattery shouldExcuse them to themselves for't, . . 'No one partsHer hair with such a silver line as you,One moonbeam from the forehead to the crown!'Or else . . 'You bite your lip in such a way,It spoils me for the smiling of the rest'—And so on. Then a worthless gaud or two,To keep for love,—a ribbon for the neck, Or some glass pin,—they have their weight with girls.
And Romney sought her many days and weeks:He sifted all the refuse of the town,Explored the trains, enquired among the ships,And felt the country through from end to end;No Marian!—Though I hinted what I knew,—A friend of his had reasons of her ownFor throwing back the match—he would not hear:The lady had been ailing ever since,The shock had harmed her. Something in his toneRepressed me; something in me shamed my doubtTo a sigh, repressed too. He went on to sayThat, putting questions where his Marian lodged,He found she had received for visitors,Besides himself and Lady WaldemarAnd, that once, me—a dubious woman dressedBeyond us both. The rings upon her handsHad dazed the children when she threw them pence.'She wore her bonnet as the queen might hers,To show the crown,' they said,—'a scarlet crownOf roses that had never been in bud.'
When Romney told me that,—for now and thenHe came to tell me how the search advanced,His voice dropped: I bent forward for the rest:The woman had been with her, it appeared,At first from week to week, then day by day,And last, 'twas sure . .I looked upon the ground To escape the anguish of his eyes, and askedAs low as when you speak to mourners newOf those they cannot bear yet to call dead,If Marian had as much as named to himA certain Rose, an early friend of hers,A ruined creature.''Never.'—Starting upHe strode from side to side about the room,Most like some prisoned lion sprung awake,Who has felt the desert sting him through his dreams.'What was I to her, that she should tell me aught?A friend! Was I a friend? I see all clear.Such devils would pull angels out of heaven,Provided they could reach them; 'tis their pride;And that's the odds 'twixt soul and body-plague!The veriest slave who drops in Cairo's street,Cries, 'Stand off from me,' to the passengers;While these blotched souls are eager to infect,And blow their bad breath in a sister's faceAs if they got some ease by it.'I broke through.'Some natures catch no plagues. I've read of babesFound whole and sleeping by the spotted breastOf one a full day dead. I hold it true,As I'm a woman and know womanhood,That Marian Erle, however lured from place,Deceived in way, keeps pure in aim and heart,As snow that's drifted from the garden-bankTo the open road.''Twas hard to hear him laugh. 'The figure's happy. Well—a dozen cartsAnd trampers will secure you presentlyA fine white snow-drift. Leave it there, your snow!'Twill pass for soot ere sunset. Pure in aim?She's pure in aim, I grant you,—like myself,Who thought to take the world upon my backTo carry it o'er a chasm of social ill,And end by letting slip through impotenceA single soul, a child's weight in a soul,Straight down the pit of hell! yes, I and sheHave reason to be proud of our pure aims.'Then softly, as the last repenting dropsOf a thunder-shower, he added, 'The poor child;Poor Marian! 'twas a luckless day for her,When first she chanced on my philanthropy.'
He drew a chair beside me, and sate down;And I, instinctively, as women useBefore a sweet friend's grief,—when, in his ear,They hum the tune of comfort, though themselvesMost ignorant of the special words of such,And quiet so and fortify his brainAnd give it time and strength for feeling outTo reach the availing sense beyond that sound,—Went murmuring to him, what, if written here,Would seem not much, yet fetched him better helpThan, peradventure, if it had been more.
I've known the pregnant thinkers of this time,And stood by breathless, hanging on their lips, When some chromatic sequence of fine thoughtIn learned modulation phrased itselfTo an unconjectured harmony of truth.And yet I've been more moved, more raised, I say,By a simple word . . a broken easy thing,A three-years infant might say after you,—A look, a sigh, a touch upon the palm,Which meant less than 'I love you' . . than by allThe full-voiced rhetoric of those master-mouths.
'Ah, dear Aurora,' he began at last,His pale lips fumbling for a sort of smile,'Your printer's devils have not spoilt your heart:That's well. And who knows but, long years ago,When you and I talked, you were somewhat rightIn being so peevish with me? You, at least,Have ruined no one through your dreams! Instead,You've helped the facile youth to live youth's dayWith innocent distraction, still perhapsSuggestive of things better than your rhymes.The little shepherd-maiden, eight years old,I've seen upon the mountains of Vaucluse,Asleep i' the sun her head upon her knees,The flocks all scattered,—is more laudableThan any sheep-dog trained imperfectly,Who bites the kids through too much zeal.''I lookAs if I had slept, then?'He was touched at onceBy something in my face. Indeed 'twas sure That he and I,—despite a year or twoOf younger life on my side, and on his,The heaping of the years' work on the days,—The three-hour speeches from the member's seat,The hot committees, in and out the House,The pamphlets, 'Arguments,' 'Collective Views,'Tossed out as straw before sick houses, justTo show one's sick and so be trod to dirt,And no more use,—through this world's undergroundThe burrowing, groping effort, whence the armAnd heart came bleeding,—sure, that he and IWere, after all, unequally fatigued!That he, in his developed manhood, stoodA little sunburnt by the glare of life;While I . . it seemed no sun had shone on me,So many seasons I had forgot my Springs;My cheeks had pined and perished from their orbs,And all the youth-blood in them had grown whiteAs dew on autumn cyclamens: aloneMy eyes and forehead answered for my face.
He said . . 'Aurora, you are changed—are ill!'
'Not so, my cousin,—only not asleep!'I answered, smiling gently. 'Let it be.You scarcely found the poet of VaucluseAs drowsy as the shepherds. What is art,But life upon the larger scale, the higher,When, graduating up in a spiral lineOf still expanding and ascending gyres, It pushes toward the intense significanceOf all things, hungry for the Infinite?Art's life,—and where we live, we suffer and toil.'
He seemed to sift me with his painful eyes.'Alas! You take it gravely; you refuseYour dreamland, right of common, and green rest.You break the mythic turf where danced the nymphs,With crooked ploughs of actual life,—let inThe axes to the legendary woods,To pay the head-tax. You are fallen indeedOn evil days, you poets, if yourselvesCan praise that art of yours no otherwise;And, if you cannot, . . better take a tradeAnd be of use! 'twere cheaper for your youth.'
'Of use!' I softly echoed, 'there's the pointWe sweep about for ever in an argument;Like swallows, which the exasperate, dying yearSets spinning in black circles, round and round,Preparing for far flights o'er unknown seas.And we . . where tend we?''Where?' he said, and sighed.'The whole creation, from the hour we are born,Perplexes us with questions. Not a stoneBut cries behind us, every weary step,'Where, where?' I leave stones to reply to stones.Enough for me and for my fleshly heartTo harken the invocations of my kind,When men catch hold upon my shuddering nerves And shriek, 'What help? what hope? what bread i' the house,'What fire i' the frost?' There must be some response,Though mine fail utterly. This social Sphinx,Who sits between the sepulchres and stews,Makes mock and mow against the crystal heavens,And bullies God,—exacts a word at leastFrom each man standing on the side of God,However paying a sphinx-price for it.We pay it also if we hold our peace,In pangs and pity. Let me speak and die.Alas! you'll say, I speak and kill, instead.'
I pressed in there; 'The best men, doing their best,Know peradventure least of what they do:Men usefullest i' the world, are simply used;The nail that holds the wood, must pierce it first,And He alone who wields the hammer, seesThe work advanced by the earliest blow. Take heart.'
'Ah, if I could have taken yours!' he said,'But that's past now.' Then rising . . 'I will takeAt least your kindness and encouragement.I thank you. Dear, be happy. Sing your songs,If that's your way! but sometimes slumber too,Nor tire too much with following, out of breath,The rhymes upon your mountains of Delight.Reflect, if Art be, in truth, the higher life,You need the lower life to stand upon,In order to reach up into that higher:And none can stand a-tiptoe in the place
He cannot stand in with two stable feet.
Remember then!—for Art's sake, hold your life.'
We parted so. I held him in respect.
I comprehended what he was in heart
And sacrificial greatness.Ay, but he
Supposed me a thing too small to deign to know:
He blew me, plainly, from the crucible,
As some intruding, interrupting fly
Not worth the pains of his analysis
Absorbed on nobler subjects.Hurt a fly!
He would not for the world: he's pitiful
To flies even.'Sing,' says he, 'and teaze me still,
If that's your way, poor insect.'That's your way!