Part 9

I sate there, musing, till she touched my hand With hers, as softly as a strange white bird She feared to startle in touching. ‘You are kind. But are you, peradventure, vexed at heart Because 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 wall A 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 breath She paused. ‘Sweet Marian, do you disavow The roses with that face?’ She dropt her head, As if the wind had caught that flower of her, And bent it in the garden,—then looked up With grave assurance. ‘Well, you think me bold! But so we all are, when we’re praying 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 some Who 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 French To wisest ladies. Do you think I’ll miss A letter, in the spelling of his mind? No more than they do, when they sit and write Their flying words with flickering wild-fowl tails, Nor ever pause to ask how many _t_s, Should that be _y_ or _i_—they know’t so well: I’ve seen them writing, when I brought a dress And waited,—floating out their soft white hands On shining paper. But they’re hard sometimes, For all those hands!—we’ve used out many nights, And worn the yellow daylight into shreds Which flapped and shivered down our aching eyes Till night appeared more tolerable, just That 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 blood Both noble and gentle,—and, without it ... well, They are fair, I said; so fair, it scarce seems strange That, flashing out in any looking-glass The wonder of their glorious brows and breasts, They are charmed so, they forget to look behind And mark how pale we’ve grown, we pitiful Remainders 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 thought Which 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 silk For 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 Waldemar Has sent me in haste to find a cousin of mine Who shall be.’

‘Lady Waldemar is good.’

‘Here’s one, at least, who is good,’ I sighed, and touched Poor Marian’s happy head, as, doglike, she Most passionately patient, waited on, A-tremble for her turn of greeting words; ‘I’ve sate a full hour with your Marian Erle, And learnt the thing by heart,—and, from my heart, Am therefore competent to give you thanks For such a cousin.’ ‘You accept at last A 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 signory Than this pure forehead’s.’ Not a word he said. How arrogant men are!—Even philanthropists, Who try to take a wife up in the way They put down a subscription-cheque,—if once She turns and says, ‘I will not tax you so, Most charitable sir,’—feel ill at ease, As though she had wronged them somehow. I suppose We women should remember what we are, And not throw back an obolus inscribed With Cæsar’s image, lightly. I resumed.

‘It strikes me, some of those sublime Vandykes Were not too proud, to make good saints in heaven; And, if so, then they’re not too proud to-day To 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 cognisant Of the less scrutable majesties. For me, I comprehend your choice—I justify Your 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 comprehend My choice, my ends, my motives, nor myself: No matter now—we’ll let it pass, you say. I thank you for your generous cousinship Which helps this present; I accept for her Your favourable thoughts. We’re fallen on days, We two, who are not poets, when to wed Requires less mutual love than common love, For two together to bear out at once Upon 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-paradise Is out of date, like Adam’s. Set a swan To swim the Trenton, rather than true love To float its fabulous plumage safely down The cataracts of this loud transition-time,— Whose roar, for ever, henceforth, in my ears, Must keep me deaf to music.’ There, I turned And kissed poor Marian, out of discontent. The man had baffled, chafed me, till I flung For 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 applied To indurate forms and systems! excellent bricks, A well-built wall,—which stops you on the road, And, into which, you cannot see an inch Although 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 sense Of 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 philosophy To keep your bird upon the blackthorn?’ ‘Ay,’ He answered, ‘but it is:—I take my wife Directly 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 meet And wed me at St. James’s, nor put off Her 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,—beware Of tragic masks, we tie before the glass, Uplifted on the cothurn half a yard Above the natural stature! we would play Heroic parts to ourselves,—and end, perhaps, As impotently as Athenian wives Who shrieked in fits at the Eumenides.

His foot pursued me down the stair. ‘At least, You’ll suffer me to walk with you beyond These hideous streets, these graves, where men alive, Packed close with earthworms, burr unconsciously About the plague that slew them; let me go. The very women pelt their souls in mud At 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 trade Competitive? has Dickens turned his hinge A-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 word Seemed tangled with the thunder at one end, And ready to pull down upon our heads A terror out of sight. And yet to pause Were surelier mortal: we tore greedily up All silence, all the innocent breathing-points, As if, like pale conspirators in haste, We tore up papers where our signatures Imperilled us to an ugly shame or death.

I cannot tell you why it was. ’Tis plain We had not loved nor hated: wherefore dread To spill gunpowder on ground safe from fire? Perhaps we had lived too closely, to diverge So 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 itself A-throb, to feel out for the mutual time. It was not so with us, indeed. While he Struck 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-night Beside a deathbed, where the morrow’s sun Is 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 down At once,—I have been wrong, I have been wrong. We are wrong always, when we think too much Of what we think or are; albeit our thoughts Be verily bitter as self-sacrifice, We’re no less selfish. If we sleep on rocks Or roses, sleeping past the hour of noon We’re lazy. This I write against myself. I had done a duty in the visit paid To Marian, and was ready otherwise To give the witness of my presence and name Whenever she should marry.—Which, I thought, Sufficed. I even had cast into the scale An overweight of justice toward the match; The Lady Waldemar had missed her tool, Had broken it in the lock as being too straight For a crooked purpose, while poor Marian Erle Missed nothing in my accents or my acts: I had not been ungenerous on the whole, Nor yet untender; so, enough. I felt Tired, 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 eyes To rest the better. I, who should have known, Forereckoned mischief! Where we disavow Being keeper to our brother, we’re his Cain.

I might have held that poor child to my heart A little longer! ’twould have hurt me much To have hastened by its beats the marriage-day, And kept her safe meantime from tampering hands, Or, peradventure, traps? What drew me back From telling Romney plainly, the designs Of Lady Waldemar, as spoken out To me ... me? had I any right, ay, right, With womanly compassion and reserve To 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 word’s grown dangerous. In the middle age, I think they called malignant fays and imps Good 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 night With your reputation. I have known good wives, As chaste, or nearly so, as Potiphar’s; And good, good mothers, who would use a child To better an intrigue; good friends, beside, (Very good) who hung succinctly round your neck And sucked your breath, as cats are fabled to do By sleeping infants. And we all have known Good critics, who have stamped out poet’s hopes; Good statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state; Good patriots, who, for a theory, risked a cause; Good 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 certainly The innocent white milk in us is turned, By much persistent shining of the sun!— Shake up the sweetest in us long enough With men, it drops to foolish curd, too sour To feed the most untender of Christ’s lambs.

I should have thought ... a woman of the world Like her I’m meaning,—centre to herself, Who has wheeled on her own pivot half a life In 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 use To her one advantage,—as the mill wants grain, The fire wants fuel, the very wolf wants prey; And none of these is more unscrupulous Than such a charming woman when she loves. She’ll not be thwarted by an obstacle So 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 frieze Was bidden to meet St. James in cloth of gold, And, after contract at the altar, pass To 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 wound All pressed out, poured out upon Pimlico, Exasperating the unaccustomed air With hideous interfusion: you’d suppose A 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 men Is sadder than a burial-day of kings.

They clogged the streets, they oozed into the church In 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 smile That misbecame them in a holy place, With broidered hems of perfumed handkerchiefs; Those passed the salts with confidence of eyes And 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 hole With shuddering involutions, swaying slow From right to left, and then from left to right, In pants and pauses. What an ugly crest Of faces, rose upon you everywhere, From that crammed mass! you did not usually See faces like them in the open day: They hide in cellars, not to make you mad As Romney Leigh is.—Faces!—O my God, We call those, faces? men’s and women’s ... ay, And children’s;—babies, hanging like a rag Forgotten on their mother’s neck,—poor mouths, Wiped clean of mother’s milk by mother’s blow, Before they are taught her cursing. Faces!... phew, We’ll call them vices festering to despairs, Or sorrows petrifying to vices: not A finger-touch of God left whole on them; All ruined, lost—the countenance worn out As the garments, the will dissolute as the acts, The passions loose and draggling in the dirt To trip the foot up at the first free step!— Those, faces! ’twas as if you had stirred up hell To heave its lowest dreg-fiends uppermost In 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 colours all your dreams Henceforth, ... though, haply, you should drop asleep By clink of silver waters, in a muse On Raffael’s mild Madonna of the Bird.

I’ve waked and slept through many nights and days Since then,—but still that day will catch my breath Like a nightmare. There are fatal days, indeed, In which the fibrous years have taken root So deeply, that they quiver to their tops Whene’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 Erle Was coming with her bridesmaids presently,’ Made haste to place me by the altar-stair, Where he and other noble gentlemen And high-born ladies, waited for the bride.

We waited. It was early: there was time For greeting, and the morning’s compliment; And gradually a ripple of women’s talk Arose and fell, and tossed about a spray Of English _s_s, soft as a silent hush, And, notwithstanding, quite as audible As 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 Ayr, In 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 enough While you have that face.’ ‘In church, my lord! fie, fie!’ —‘Adair, you stayed for the Division?’—‘Lost By 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 know The five Miss Granvilles? always dressed in white To show they’re ready to be married.’—‘Lower! The aunt is at your elbow.’—‘Lady Maud, Did Lady Waldemar tell you she had seen This 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-awake Great 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 organised Leigh’s folly. Should I have come here, you suppose, Except she’d asked me?’—‘She’d have served him more By marrying him herself.’ ‘Ah—there she comes, The bride, at last!’ ‘Indeed, no. Past eleven. She puts off her patched petticoat to-day And puts on May-fair manners, so begins By setting us to wait.’—‘Yes, yes, this Leigh Was always odd; it’s in the blood, I think; His father’s uncle’s cousin’s second son Was, was ... you understand me—and for him, He’s stark!—has turned quite lunatic upon This 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 Cheapside To shake a common fellow by the fist Whose name was ... Shakspeare? no. We draw a line, And if we stand not by our order, we In 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 limbs Were torn by horses, women of the court Stood by and stared, exactly as to-day On 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 him A simple misalliance, got up aside For a pair of sky-blue eyes; our House of Lords Has 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, pioneer Good acts by a great example) ’twixt the extremes Of 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 sympathy With the bridegroom.’ ‘What,—you also, disapprove!’