Part 21
[The dawn of a mid-May day in the same spring shows the village of Albuera with the country around it, as viewed from the summit of a line of hills on which the English and their allies are ranged under Beresford. The landscape swept by the eye includes to the right foreground a hill loftier than any, and somewhat detached from the range. The green slopes behind and around this hill are untrodden--though in a few hours to be the sanguinary scene of the most murderous struggle of the whole war.
The village itself lies to the left foreground, with its stream flowing behind it in the distance on the right. A creeping brook at the bottom of the heights held by the English joins the stream by the village. Behind the stream some of the French forces are visible. Away behind these stretches a great wood several miles in area, out of which the Albuera stream emerges, and behind the furthest verge of the wood the morning sky lightens momently. The birds in the wood, unaware that this day is to be different from every other day they have known there, are heard singing their overtures with their usual serenity.]
DUMB SHOW
As objects grow more distinct it can be perceived that some strategic dispositions of the night are being completed by the French forces, which the evening before lay in the woodland to the front of the English army. They have emerged during the darkness, and large sections of them--infantry, cuirassiers, and artillery--have crept round to BERESFORD'S right without his suspecting the movement, where they lie hidden by the great hill aforesaid, though not more than half-a-mile from his right wing.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
A hot ado goes forward here to-day, If I may read the Immanent Intent From signs and tokens blent With weird unrest along the firmament Of causal coils in passionate display. --Look narrowly, and what you witness say.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
I see red smears upon the sickly dawn, And seeming drops of gore. On earth below Are men--unnatural and mechanic-drawn-- Mixt nationalities in row and row, Wheeling them to and fro In moves dissociate from their souls' demand, For dynasts' ends that few even understand!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Speak more materially, and less in dream.
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
I'll do it.... The stir of strife grows well defined Around the hamlet and the church thereby: Till, from the wood, the ponderous columns wind, Guided by Godinot, with Werle nigh. They bear upon the vill. But the gruff guns Of Dickson's Portuguese Punch spectral vistas through the maze of these!... More Frenchmen press, and roaring antiphons Of cannonry contuse the roofs and walls and trees.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Wrecked are the ancient bridge, the green spring plot, the blooming fruit-tree, the fair flower-knot!
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
Yet the true mischief to the English might Is meant to fall not there. Look to the right, And read the shaping scheme by yon hill-side, Where cannon, foot, and brisk dragoons you see, With Werle and Latour-Maubourg to guide, Waiting to breast the hill-brow bloodily.
BERESFORD now becomes aware of this project on his flank, and sends orders to throw back his right to face the attack. The order is not obeyed. Almost at the same moment the French rush is made, the Spanish and Portuguese allies of the English are beaten beck, and the hill is won. But two English divisions bear from the centre of their front, and plod desperately up the hill to retake it.
SPIRIT SINISTER
Now he among us who may wish to be A skilled practitioner in slaughtery, Should watch this hour's fruition yonder there, And he will know, if knowing ever were, How mortals may be freed their fleshly cells, And quaint red doors set ope in sweating fells, By methods swift and slow and foul and fair!
The English, who have plunged up the hill, are caught in a heavy mist, that hides from them an advance in their rear of the lancers and hussars of the enemy. The lines of the Buffs, the Sixty-sixth, and those of the Forty-eighth, who were with them, in a chaos of smoke, steel, sweat, curses, and blood, are beheld melting down like wax from an erect position to confused heaps. Their forms lie rigid, or twitch and turn, as they are trampled over by the hoofs of the enemy's horse. Those that have not fallen are taken.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
It works as you, uncanny Phantom, wist!... Whose is that towering form That tears across the mist To where the shocks are sorest?--his with arm Outstretched, and grimy face, and bloodshot eye, Like one who, having done his deeds, will die?
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
He is one Beresford, who heads the fight For England here to-day.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
He calls the sight Despite itself!--parries yon lancer's thrust, And with his own sword renders dust to dust!
The ghastly climax of the strife is reached; the combatants are seen to be firing grape and canister at speaking distance, and discharging musketry in each other's faces when so close that their complexions may be recognized. Hot corpses, their mouths blackened by cartridge-biting, and surrounded by cast-away knapsacks, firelocks, hats, stocks, flint-boxes, and priming horns, together with red and blue rags of clothing, gaiters, epaulettes, limbs and viscera accumulate on the slopes, increasing from twos and threes to half-dozens, and from half-dozens to heaps, which steam with their own warmth as the spring rain falls gently upon them.
The critical instant has come, and the English break. But a comparatively fresh division, with fusileers, is brought into the turmoil by HARDINGE and COLE, and these make one last strain to save the day, and their names and lives. The fusileers mount the incline, and issuing from the smoke and mist startle the enemy by their arrival on a spot deemed won.
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]
They come, beset by riddling hail; They sway like sedges is a gale; The fail, and win, and win, and fail. Albuera!
SEMICHORUS II
They gain the ground there, yard by yard, Their brows and hair and lashes charred, Their blackened teeth set firm and hard.
SEMICHORUS I
Their mad assailants rave and reel, And face, as men who scorn to feel, The close-lined, three-edged prongs of steel.
SEMICHORUS II
Till faintness follows closing-in, When, faltering headlong down, they spin Like leaves. But those pay well who win Albuera.
SEMICHORUS I
Out of six thousand souls that sware To hold the mount, or pass elsewhere, But eighteen hundred muster there.
SEMICHORUS II
Pale Colonels, Captains, ranksmen lie, Facing the earth or facing sky;-- They strove to live, they stretch to die.
SEMICHORUS I
Friends, foemen, mingle; heap and heap.-- Hide their hacked bones, Earth!--deep, deep, deep, Where harmless worms caress and creep.
CHORUS
Hide their hacked bones, Earth!--deep, deep, deep, Where harmless worms caress and creep.-- What man can grieve? what woman weep? Better than waking is to sleep! Albuera!
The night comes on, and darkness covers the battle-field.
## SCENE V
WINDSOR CASTLE. A ROOM IN THE KING'S APARTMENT
[The walls of the room are padded, and also the articles of furniture, the stuffing being overlaid with satin and velvet, on which are worked in gold thread monograms and crowns. The windows are guarded, and the floor covered with thick cork, carpeted. The time is shortly after the last scene.
The KING is seated by a window, and two of Dr. WILLIS'S attendants are in the room. His MAJESTY is now seventy-two; his sight is very defective, but he does not look ill. He appears to be lost in melancholy thought, and talks to himself reproachfully, hurried manner on occasion being the only irregular symptom that he betrays.]
KING
In my lifetime I did not look after her enough--enough--enough! And now she is lost to me, and I shall never see her more. Had I but known, had I but thought of it! Gentlemen, when did I lose the Princess Amelia?
FIRST ATTENDANT
The second of last November, your Majesty.
KING
And what is it now?
FIRST ATTENDANT
Now, sir, it is the beginning of June.
KING
Ah, June, I remember!... The June flowers are not for me. I shall never see them; nor will she. So fond of them as she was. ... Even if I were living I would never go where there are flowers any more! No: I would go to the bleak, barren places that she never would walk in, and never knew, so that nothing might remind me of her, and make my heart ache more than I can bear!... Why, the beginning of June?--that's when they are coming to examine me! [He grows excited.]
FIRST ATTENDANT [to second attendant, aside]
Dr. Reynolds ought not have reminded him of their visit. It only disquiets him and makes him less fit to see them.
KING
How long have I been confined here?
FIRST ATTENDANT
Since November, sir; for your health's sake entirely, as your Majesty knows.
KING
What, what? So long? Ah, yes. I must bear it. This is the fourth great black gulf in my poor life, is it not? The fourth.
[A signal from the door. The second attendant opens it and whispers. Enter softly SIR HENRY HALFORD, DR. WILLIAM HEBERDEN, DR. ROBERT WILLIS, DR. MATTHEW BAILLIE, the KING'S APOTHECARY, and one or two other gentlemen.]
KING [straining his eye to discern them]
What! Are they come? What will they do to me? How dare they! I am Elector of Hanover! [Finding Dr. Willis is among them he shrieks.] O, they are going to bleed me--yes, to bleed me! [Piteously.] My friends, don't bleed me--pray don't! It makes me so weak to take my blood. And the leeches do, too, when you put so many. You will not be so unkind, I am sure!
WILLIS [to Baillie]
It is extraordinary what a vast aversion he has to bleeding--that most salutary remedy, fearlessly practised. He submits to leeches as yet but I won't say that he will for long without being strait- jacketed.
KING [catching some of the words]
You will strait-jacket me? O no, no!
WILLIS
Leeches are not effective, really. Dr. Home, when I mentioned it to him yesterday, said he would bleed him till he fainted if he had charge of him!
KING
O will you do it, sir, against my will, And put me, once your king, in needless pain? I do assure you truly, my good friends, That I have done no harm! In sunnier years Ere I was throneless, withered to a shade, Deprived of my divine authority-- When I was hale, and ruled the English land-- I ever did my utmost to promote The welfare of my people, body and soul! Right many a morn and night I have prayed and mused How I could bring them to a better way. So much of me you surely know, my friends, And will not hurt me in my weakness here! [He trembles.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
The tears that lie about this plightful scene Of heavy travail in a suffering soul, Mocked with the forms and feints of royalty While scarified by briery Circumstance, Might drive Compassion past her patiency To hold that some mean, monstrous ironist Had built this mistimed fabric of the Spheres To watch the throbbings of its captive lives, [The which may Truth forfend], and not thy said Unmaliced, unimpassioned, nescient Will!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Mild one, be not touched with human fate. Such is the Drama: such the Mortal state: No sigh of thine can null the Plan Predestinate!
HALFORD
We have come to do your Majesty no harm. Here's Dr. Heberden, whom I am sure you like, And this is Dr. Baillie. We arrive But to inquire and gather how you are, Thereon to let the Privy Council know, And give assurances for you people's good.
[A brass band is heard playing in the distant part of Windsor.]
KING
Ah--what does that band play for here to-day? She has been dead and I so short a time!... Her little hands are hardly cold as yet; But they can show such cruel indecency As to let trumpets play!
HALFORD
They guess not, sir, That you can hear them, or their chords would cease. Their boisterous music fetches back to me That, of our errands to your Majesty, One was congratulation most sincere Upon this glorious victory you have won. The news is just in port; the band booms out To celebrate it, and to honour you.
KING
A victory? I? Pray where?
HALFORD
Indeed so, sir: Hard by Albuera--far in harried Spain-- Yes, sir; you have achieved a victory Of dash unmatched and feats unparalleled!
KING
He says I have won a battle? But I thought I was a poor afflicted captive here, In darkness lingering out my lonely days, Beset with terror of these myrmidons That suck my blood like vampires! Ay, ay, ay!-- No aims left to me but to quicken death To quicklier please my son!--And yet he says That I have won a battle! O God, curse, damn! When will the speech of the world accord with truth, And men's tongues roll sincerely!
GENTLEMAN [aside]
Faith, 'twould seem As if the madman were the sanest here!
[The KING'S face has flushed, and he becomes violent. The attendants rush forward to him.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Something within me aches to pray To some Great Heart, to take away This evil day, this evil day!
CHORUS IRONIC
Ha-ha! That's good. Thou'lt pray to It:-- But where do Its compassions sit? Yea, where abides the heart of it?
Is it where sky-fires flame and flit, Or solar craters spew and spit, Or ultra-stellar night-webs knit?
What is Its shape? Man's counterfeit? That turns in some far sphere unlit The Wheel which drives the Infinite?
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Mock on, mock on! Yet I'll go pray To some Great Heart, who haply may Charm mortal miseries away!
[The KING'S paroxysm continues. The attendants hold him.]
HALFORD
This is distressing. One can never tell How he will take things now. I thought Albuera A subject that would surely solace him. These paroxysms--have they been bad this week? [To Attendants.]
FIRST ATTENDANT
Sir Henry, no. He has quite often named The late Princess, as gently as a child A little bird found starved.
WILLIS [aside to apothecary]
I must increase the opium to-night, and lower him by a double set of leeches since he won't stand the lancet quietly.
APOTHECARY
You should take twenty ounces, doctor, if a drop--indeed, go on blooding till he's unconscious. He is too robust by half. And the watering-pot would do good again--not less than six feet above his head. See how heated he is.
WILLIS
Curse that town band. It will have to be stopped.
HEBERDEN
The same thing is going on all over England, no doubt, on account of this victory.
HALFORD
When he is in a more domineering mood he likes such allusions to his rank as king.... If he could resume his walks on the terrace he might improve slightly. But it is too soon yet. We must consider what we shall report to the Council. There is little hope of his being much better. What do you think, Willis?
WILLIS
None. He is done for this time!
HALFORD
Well, we must soften it down a little, so as not to upset the Queen too much, poor woman, and distract the Council unnecessarily. Eldon will go pumping up bucketfuls, and the Archbishops are so easily shocked that a certain conventional reserve is almost forced upon us.
WILLIS [returning from the King]
He is already better. The paroxysm has nearly passed. Your opinion will be far more favourable before you leave.
[The KING soon grows calm, and the expression of his face changes to one of dejection. The attendants leave his side: he bends his head, and covers his face with his hand, while his lips move as if in prayer. He then turns to them.]
KING [meekly]
I am most truly sorry, gentlemen, If I have used language that would seem to show Discourtesy to you for your good help In this unhappy malady of mine! My nerves unstring, my friend; my flesh grows weak: “The good that I do I leave undone, The evil which I would not, that I do!” Shame, shame on me!
WILLIS [aside to the others]
Now he will be as low as before he was in the other extreme.
KING
A king should bear him kingly; I of all, One of so long a line. O shame on me!... --This battle that you speak of?--Spain, of course? Ah--Albuera! And many fall--eh? Yes?
HALFORD
Many hot hearts, sir, cold, I grieve to say. There's Major-General Houghton, Captain Bourke, And Herbert of the Third, Lieutenant Fox, And Captains Erck and Montague, and more. With Majors-General Cole and Stewart wounded, And Quartermaster-General Wallace too: A total of three generals, colonels five, Five majors, fifty captains; and to these Add ensigns and lieutenants sixscore odd, Who went out, but returned not. Heavily tithed Were the attenuate battalions there Who stood and bearded Death by the hour that day!
KING
O fearful price for victory! Add thereto All those I lost at Walchere.--A crime Lay there!... I stood on Chatham's being sent: It wears on me, till I am unfit to live!
WILLIS [aside to the others]
Don't let him get on that Walcheren business. There will be another outbreak. Heberden, please ye talk to him. He fancies you most.
HEBERDEN
I'll tell him some of the brilliant feats of the battle. [He goes and talks to the KING.]
WILLIS [to the rest]
Well, my inside begins to cry cupboard. I had breakfast early. We have enough particulars now to face the Queen's Council with, I should say, Sir Henry?
HALFORD
Yes.--I want to get back to town as soon as possible to-day. Mrs Siddons has a party at her house at Westbourne to-night, and all the world is going to be there.
BAILLIE
Well, I am not. But I have promised to take some friends to Vauxhall, as it is a grand gala and fireworks night. Miss Farren is going to sing “The Canary Bird.”--The Regent's fete, by the way, is postponed till the nineteenth, on account of this relapse. Pretty grumpy he was at having to do it. All the world will be THERE, sure!
WILLIS
And some from the Shades, too, of the fair, sex.--Well, here comes Heberden. He has pacified his Majesty nicely. Now we can get away.
[The physicians withdraw softly, and the scene is covered.]
## SCENE VI
LONDON. CARLTON HOUSE AND THE STREETS ADJOINING
[It is a cloudless midsummer evening, and as the west fades the stars beam down upon the city, the evening-star hanging like a jonquil blossom. They are dimmed by the unwonted radiance which spreads around and above Carlton House. As viewed from aloft the glare rises through the skylights, floods the forecourt towards Pall Mall, and kindles with a diaphanous glow the huge tents in the gardens that overlook the Mall. The hour has arrived of the Prince Regent's festivity.
A stream of carriages and sedan-chairs, moving slowly, stretches from the building along Pall Mall into Piccadilly and Bond Street, and crowds fill the pavements watching the bejewelled and feathered occupants. In addition to the grand entrance inside the Pall Mall colonnade there is a covert little “chair-door” in Warwick Street for sedans only, by which arrivals are perceived to be slipping in almost unobserved.]
SPIRIT IRONIC
What domiciles are those, of singular expression, Whence no guest comes to join the gemmed procession; That, west of Hyde, this, in the Park-side Lane, Each front beclouded like a mask of pain?
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
Therein the princely host's two spouses dwell; A wife in each. Let me inspect and tell.
[The walls of the two houses--one in Park Lane, the other at Kensington--become transparent.]
I see within the first his latter wife-- That Caroline of Brunswick whose brave sire Yielded his breath on Jena's reeking plain, And of whose kindred other yet may fall Ere long, if character indeed be fate.-- She idles feasting, and is full of jest As each gay chariot rumbles to the rout. “I rank like your Archbishops' wives,” laughs she; “Denied my husband's honours. Funny me!”
[Suddenly a Beau on his way to the Carlton House festival halts at her house, calls, and is shown in.]
He brings her news that a fresh favourite rules Her husband's ready heart; likewise of those Obscure and unmissed courtiers late deceased, Who have in name been bidden to the feast By blundering scribes.
[The Princess is seen to jump up from table at some words from her visitor, and clap her hands.]
These tidings, juxtaposed, Have fired her hot with curiosity, And lit her quick invention with a plan.
PRINCESS OF WALES
Mine God, I'll go disguised--in some dead name And enter by the leetle, sly, chair-door Designed for those not welcomed openly. There unobserved I'll note mine new supplanter! 'Tis indiscreet? Let indiscretion rule, Since caution pensions me so scurvily!
SPIRIT IRONIC
Good. Now for the other sweet and slighted spouse.
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
The second roof shades the Fitzherbert Fair; Reserved, perverse. As coach and coach roll by She mopes within her lattice; lampless, lone, As if she grieved at her ungracious fate, And yet were loth to kill the sting of it By frankly forfeiting the Prince and town. “Bidden,” says she, “but as one low of rank, And go I will not so unworthily, To sit with common dames!”--A flippant friend Writes then that a new planet sways to-night The sense of her erratic lord; whereon The fair Fitzherbert muses hankeringly.
MRS. FITZHERBERT [soliloquizing]
The guest-card which I publicly refused Might, as a fancy, privately be used!... Yes--one last look--a wordless, wan farewell To this false life which glooms me like a knell, And him, the cause; from some hid nook survey His new magnificence;--then go for aye!
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
She cloaks and veils, and in her private chair Passes the Princess also stealing there-- Two honest wives, and yet a differing pair!
SPIRIT IRONIC
With dames of strange repute, who bear a ticket For screened admission by the private wicket.
CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]
A wife of the body, a wife of the mind, A wife somewhat frowsy, a wife too refined: Could the twain but grow one, and no other dames be, No husband in Europe more steadfast than he!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Cease fooling on weak waifs who love and wed But as the unweeting Urger may bestead!-- See them withinside, douce and diamonded.
[The walls of Carlton House open, and the spectator finds himself confronting the revel.]
## SCENE VII
THE SAME. THE INTERIOR OF CARLTON HOUSE
[A central hall is disclosed, radiant with constellations of candles, lamps, and lanterns, and decorated with flowering shrubs. An opening on the left reveals the Grand Council-chamber prepared for dancing, the floor being chalked with arabesques having in the centre “G. III. R.,” with a crown, arms, and supporters. Orange- trees and rose-bushes in bloom stand against the walls. On the right hand extends a glittering vista of the supper-rooms and tables, now crowded with guests. This display reaches as far as the conservatory westward, and branches into long tents on the lawn.