[Library of Congress receipt stamp]
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Two copies received
Oct. 2 1901
Copyright entry Oct. 2, 1901
Class D XXo. No. / 936 / copy A.
LUCILE
OR
THE ATONEMENT
A PLAY IN FIVE ACT S
A DRAMATIZATION OF OWEN MEREDITH'S
POEM
"LUCILE"
BY
FRANCES C. FULTON.
LUCILE
OR, THE ATONEMENT
CAST OF CHARACTERS
EUGENE DE LUVOIS, A French Duke,
ALFRED VARGRAVE, An English Lord.
COUSIN JOHN, A Peacemaker.
ARTHUR, son to LORD VARGRAVE.
COLONEL DUBOIS of the French Army.
LUCILE DE NEVERS, A French Countess and afterward
THE SOEUR SERAPHINE.
MATILDA DARCY, afterward LADY VARGRAVE.
Servants, Guides, Soldiers, etc.
[The pages of this typescript have a typed number at the bottom of each of them and they are hand-numbered 936-1 to 936-43, apparently by the photographer preparing the microfilm, in lower right corner of each page. The latter sequence is uniform, the first is not, making this a work complex to correctly reconstruct. For a full investigation of this see the end of the play.]
ACT I.
Scene I. (A room in a hotel at Bigorre. Time morning. Curtain rises on Lord Alfred Vargrave sitting in center of room smoking. Knock at door L.)
ALFRED.. Come in.
Enter Servant with letter.
ALFRED.. Oh a letter! (Exit Servant. Breaks seal carelessly. Glances at contents, then jumps to his feet and reads)
"I learn from Bigorre you are there. I am told you are going to marry a Miss Darcy. Of old, so long since you may have forgotten it now, (when we parted as friends, some mere strangers to grow) your last words recorded a pledge -- what you will, a promise -- the time is now come to fulfill. The letters I ask you, my lord, to return, I desire to receive from your hand. You discern my reasons, which, therefore, I need not explain. The distance to Luchon is short. I remain a month in these mountains. Miss Darcy, perchance, will forego one brief page from the summer romance of her courtship, and spare you one day from your place at her feet, in the light of her fair English face. I desire nothing more, and trust you will feel I desire nothing much.
Your friend always, LUCILE."
(Dashes letter aside with a cry of surprise. Walks to window R, and gazes out moodily; turns and sighs.)
ALFRED.. Confound it! Confound it!!
Enter Cousin John. L.
JOHN. A fool, Alfred, a fool, a most motle]y fool!
ALFRED.. Who?
JOHN. The man who has anything better to do; and yet so far forgets himself, so far degrades his position as Man, to travel about with a woman in love, unless she's in love with -- himself.
ALFRED.. (laughing) I indeed! why are you here then, dear Jack?
JOHN. Can't you guess it?
ALFRED.. Not I.
JOHN. Because I have nothing that's better to do. I had rather be bored, my dear Alfred, by yoou, on the whole (I must own) than be bored by myself. That perverse, imperturbable, golden-haired elf -- your Will-o'-the-wisp -- that has led you and me such a dance through these hills --
ALFRED.. Who, Matilda?
JOHN. Yes, she, of course!
ALFRED.. What's the matter?
JOHN. Why, she is -- a matter, the more I consider about it, the more it demands an attention it does not deserve. the case wholly passes my patience.
ALFRED.. My own is worse tried.
JOHN. Yours
ALFRED..
ALFRED.. Read this if you doubt and decide. (hands letter to John).
JOHN. (reading) "I from Bigorre you are there. I am told you are going to marry Miss Darcy. Of old-' (to Alfred) What is this>
ALFRED.. Read it on to the end, and you'll know.
JOHN. (continues reading "When we parted, your last words recorded a vow -- what you will-' Hang it! this smells all over, I swear, of adventures and violets. Was it your hair you promised a lock of?
ALFRED.. Read on. You'll discern.
JOHN. (continues) "Those letters I ask you, my lord, to return -' Humph! Letters! the matter is worse than I guessed. I have my misgivings -
ALFRED.. Well, read out the rest and advise.
JOHN. Eh? Where was I? (reads) "Miss Darcy perchance will forgo one brief page from the summer romance of her courtship -' Egad! a romance for my part, I'd forego every page of, and not break my heart!
ALFRED.. (impatiently) Continue!
JOHN. (reading) "And spare you one day from your place at her feet." "At her feet!" Pray forgive me the passing grimace. I wish you had my place!
(reads) "I trust you will feel I desire nothing much. Your friend.' Bless me!
LUCile? The Countess de Nevers?
ALFRED.. Yes.
JOHN. What will you do?
ALFRED.. You ask me just what I would rather ask you.
JOHN. You can't go.
ALFRED.. I must.
JOHN.And Matilda?
ALFRED.. Oh, that you must manage!
JOHN. (crosses to R.) Must I? I decline it, though, flat! In an hour the horses will be at the door, and Matilda is now in her habit. Before I have finished my breakfast, of course, I receive a message (bows mockingly) from 'dear Cousin John!' I must leave at the jeweler's the bracelet you broke last night. I must call for the music. 'Dear Alfred is right, the black shawl looks best. Will I change it?' Of course. 'I can stop, in passing to order the horse.' Then Beau has the mumps, or St. Hubert knows what. 'Will I see the dog-doctor?' Hang Beau! I will not (starts L.)
ALFRED.. (stops John) Tush! tush! this is serious.
JOHN. It is.
ALFRED.. You must think -
JOHN. (interrupting) What excuse will you make though?
ALFRED.. Oh, tell Mrs. Darcy that - lend me your wits, Jack! The deuce!
JOHN. My dear fellow, Matilda is jealous, you know, as Othello.
ALFRED.. You joke.
JOHN. I am serious. Why go to Serchon?
ALFRED.. Don't ask me. I have not a choice, my dear John. Besides, shall I own a strange sort of desire, before I extinguish forever the fire of youth and romance, to be once more be, though but for an hour, Jack—a boy! (crosses to table R. sits)
JOHN. You had better go hang yourself!
ALFRED.. No! were it but to make sure that the Past from the Future is shut, it were worth the step back.
JOHN. Nonsense! Nonsense!
ALFRED.. Well, Regret or Remorse? Which is best?
JOHN. Why, Regret.
ALFRED.. No; Remorse, Jack, of course. Regret is a spiteful old maid: but her brother, Remorse, though a widower certainly, yet has been wed to young Pleasure. Dear Jack, hang Regret! (rises)
JOHN. Bref! you mean, then, to go?
ALFRED.. Bref! I do. (starts L.)
JOHN. One word -- stay, are you really in love with Matilda?
ALFRED.. Love, eh? What a question! Of course.
JOHN. Were you really in love with Madame de Nevers?
ALFRED.. What; Lucile? No, by Jove, Never really.
JOHN. She's pretty?
ALFRED.. Decidedly so. At least, so she was - some ten summers ago.
JOHN. Coquette?
ALFRED.. Not at all. 'Twas her one fault. Not she! I had loved her the better, had she less loved me.
JOHN. And, unless rumor errs, I believe that, last year, the Comtesse de Nevers was at Baden the rage, — held an absolute court of devoted adorers, and really made sport of her subjects.
ALFRED.. Indeed!
JOHN. When she broke off with you her engagement, her heart did not break with it?
ALFRED.. Pooh! Pray would you have had her dress always in black, and shut herself up in a convent, dear Jack? Besides, 'twas my fault the engagement was broken.
JOHN. I dare say. How was that?
ALFRED.. O, the tale is soon spoken. She bored me. I showed it. She saw it --
JOHN. What next?
ALFRED.. She reproached. I retorted. Of course she was vexed. She sulked (shrugging shoulders). So did I. At noon I was banished. At eve I was pardoned. She said I had no heart. I said she had no reason. In short, my dear fellow, 'twas time, as you see, things should come to a crisis, and finish. 'Twas she by whom to that crisis the matter was brought. She released me. And so we parted. The rest of the story you know.
JOHN. No, indeed.
ALFRED.. Well, we parted. Of course we could not continue to meet, as before, in one place. You conceive it was awkward. (loftily) I think that I acted exceedingly well, considering the time when this rupture befell, for Paris was charming just then. I asked to be changed. Wrote for Naples, -- then vacant -- obtained it and so joined my new post at once; but scarce reached it, when lo! my first news from Paris informs me Lucile is ill, and in danger. I fly back. I find her recovered, but yet looking pale. I ask to renew the engagement.
JOHN. And she?
ALFRED.. Reflects, but declines. We part, swearing to be friends ever, friends only. We each keep our letters - (takes from table or bureau) a ring - (turns on finger) with a pledge to return them whenever the one or the other shall call for them back.
JOHN. Pray go on.
ALFRED.. My story is finished. Heigho! now, Jack, you know all.
JOHN (after a pause) You are really resolved to go back?
ALFRED.. Eh, where?
JOHN. To that worst of all places — the past. You remember Lot's wife?
ALFRED.. 'Twas a promise when last we parted. My honor is pledged to it. JOHN. Well, what is it you wish me to do?
ALFRED.. You must tell Matilda I meant to have called — to leave word — to explain — but the time was so pressing — JOHN. (interrupting) My lord (bows) your lordship's obedient -- I really can't do --
ALFRED.. (annoyed) You wish then to break off my marriage? Heartless, cold, unconcerned!
JOHN. (folds arms) Have you done? Is that all? Well, then, listen to me! I presume when you made up your mind to propose to Miss Darcy, you weighed all the drawbacks against the equivalent gains, ere you finally settled the point. What remains but to stick to your choice? You want money; 'tis here. A settled position; 'tis yours. A career; You secure it. A wife, young, and pretty as rich, whom all men will envy you. Why must you itch to be running away, on the eve of all this, to a woman whom never for once did you miss all these years since you left her? Who knows what may hap? This letter (holding it up) to me is a palpable trap. You are risking the substance of all that you schemed to obtain; and for what? Some mad dream you have dreamed!
ALFRED.. But there's nothing to risk. You exaggerate, Jack, you mistake. In three days, at the most, I am back.
JOHN. Ay, but how? Discontented, unsettled, upset, bearing with you a comfortless twinge of regret; preoccupied, sulky, and likely enough to make your fiancee break off all in a huff. Three days, do you say? But in three days who knows what may happen? I don't, nor do you, I suppose. (starts to go).
ALFRED.. Stay one moment, old boy, while I write a brief note to Lucile. Then I'll order my horse and set out forthwith for Serchon. (writes and reads)
Bigorre, Tuesday.
"Your note, Madam, reached me to-day at Bigorre, and commands (need I add) my obedience. Before the night I shall be at Serchon -- where a line, if sent to Duval's, the hotel where I dine, will find me awaiting your orders. Recieve my respects.
Your sincerely A. Vargrave."
I leave in an hour. (Rings bell. Enter Servant. Address note.) To the Countess de Nevers. (Gives note to Servant who exits.) Now Jack! (Slap him on the back and both exit L.)
End Scene I.
ACT I Scene II.
The chalet of the Countess de Nevers at Serchon. Enter Lord Alfred L. -- Door opened by old negress. [note added in pen: "Scene in Rear."]
ALFRED.. (to negress) Your mistress expects me. (Walks to mantel R. Notices a bouquet of withered wild flowers (sighs); picks up a torn white glove -- throws it aside.) Ah! (turns back and looks out of window.)
(Enter Lucile center entranced. Alfred turns indifferently and a cry of surprise escapes him. He looks at her silent.)
LUCILE. Lord Vargrave.
ALFRED.. Madam, you see that your latest command has secured by immediate obedience. (places chair for her). Presuming I may consider my freedom restored from this day. (Sit by her).
LUCILE. (smiling) I had thought that your freedom from me not fetter has had. Indeed, in my chains have you rested 'til now? I had not so flattered myself, I avow!
ALFRED.. For Heaven's sake, Madam, Do not jest! has the moment no sadness? (sighs).
LUCILE. 'Tis an ancient tradition, a tale often told — a position too sure to prevail in the end of all legends of love. At twenty we write believing eternal the frail vows we plight. The error was noble, the vanity fine! Shall we blame it because we survive it? ah, no! 'Twas the youth of our youth, my lord, is it not so? (Lord Alfred looks at her surprised, stupefied, then bows down his head and crumples the letters.)
LUCILE. You know me enough, or what I would say is, you yet recollect (do you not, Lord Alfred) enough of my nature, to know that these pledges of what was perhaps long ago, a foolish affection. I do not recall from those motives of prudence which actuate all -- or most women when their love ceases. Indeed, if you have such a doubt, to dispel it I need but remind you that ten years these letters (pointing to them) have rested unclaimed in your hands; nor should I have suggested their return, if I had not from all that I hear, feared those letters might now (might they not?) interfere with the peace of another.
ALFRED.. You are generous, Madam, if these be indeed, the sole motives you feel.
LUCILE. (in surprise) What others but these could I have?
ALFRED.. I might presume, if I did wish to call into question (which Heaven forbid) the generous feelings that find me -- believe -- most grateful -- these letters you wished to receive from personal motives.
LUCILE. (laughing) Were it not somewhat late to have these? O my Lord, had I waited, for (what is it you say?) such personal motives (your words) 'til to-day, would you not, of a truth have experienced one touch of dreadful remorse?
ALFRED.. You embarrass me much.
LUCILE. Come! (lays hand on his) Do not think I abuse the occasion. From me not a single reproach shall you hear. The woman who loves should, indeed, be the friend of the man that she loves. She should heed not her selfish and often mistaken desires, but his interest whose fate her own interest inspires, and use all her art that his place in the world find its place in her heart. I, alas, perceived not this truth till too late! I tormented your youth, I have darkened your fate. Forgive me the ill I have done for the sake of its long expiation! (extends hands to him)
ALFRED.. (bows head over her hands) Ah, Madam, I feel that I have never till now comprehended you, never! I blush to avow that I have deserved you.
LUCILE. No, no! When you knew me, I was not what now I may be. Were I now to received the love of a man whom the world loves, believe me, if I had to dispose of his life in the world where his fame should repose, I think I should know how to help his career, and to add to it happiness - not, as I fear I once sought, to destroy it.
ALFRED.. (kisses her hand) Ah, Madam!
LUCILE. Ah, now we are friends! And Miss Darcy - your beautiful finacee - tell me what i she like? (Alfred shakes his head). Describe her my friend.
ALFRED.. (indifferently) A blonde.
LUCILE. Ah! beautiful, of course, with hair the sunlight and eyes like the sky.
ALFRED.. Yes (shrugging) I believe so, by those who - (leaning toward her) but you know I never cared for that type.
LUCILE. In the old days, perhaps, but now -- not now - You must love her, so fair and so sweet.
ALFRED.. Lucile! (leans toward her again) (a bell rings. Enter Negress.) NEGRESS. The Duke de Luvois has just entered and insisted --
LUCILE. The Duke! Say I do not receive 'til the evening. Explain (glances at Alfred) I have business of private importance.
ALFRED.. (rising with a slight sneer) Let not me interfere with the claims on your time, Lady. When you are free from more pleasant arrangements, allow me to see and to wait on your later. (crosses)
LUCILE. (Rise and bows haughtily to
ALFRED.. To negress) Tell the Duke he may enter.
ALFRED.. (bows and exits into garden.) Enter the Duke L.
LUCILE. Ah! Monsieur Le Duc?
DUKE. (takes her hand, kisses it and leads her to sofa) Ah, forgive! I desire so deeply to see you to-day. You retired so early last night from the ball. This whole week I have seen you pale, silent, preoccupied. Speak, speak, Lucile and forgive! I --
LUCILE. Forgive!
DUKE. Yes! I know that I am a rash fool, but I love you! I love you, Madam, more than language can say. It is not the Duke de Luvois that here kneels to the Countess
LUCILE. 'Tis a soul that appeals to a soul! 'tis a heart that cries out for a heart. 'tis the man you, yourself, have created in part, that implores you to sanction and save the new life which he lays at your feet with this prayer. (kneels). Be my wife! stoop and raise me! (Alfred appears at window)
LUCILE. Duke, you know -
DUKE. (Rising and sitting by her) Hush! hush! I know all. Tell me nothing Lucile.
LUCILE. You know all, Duke? Well, then, know that, in truth, I have learned from the rude lesson taught to my youth, from my own heart to shelter my life[,] to mistrust the heart of another. We are what we must, and not what we would be.
DUKE. 'Tis not my life, Lucile, that I plead for alone. If your nature I know, 'tis no less for your own. I offer you, lady, a name not unknown, a fortune which worthless without you grown. All my life at your feet I lay down - at your feet a heart which for you and you only can beat.
LUCILE. That heart, Duke, that life -- I respect both. The name and position you offer, and all that you claim in behalf of their nobler employment - I feel to deserve what in turn, I now ask you -
DUKE. (pleadingly) Lucile!
LUCILE. I ask you to leave me --
DUKE. You do not reject?
LUCILE. (rises and crosses R.) I ask you to leave me the time to reflect.
DUKE. (smiling) Say one word - may I hope?
LUCILE. Give me time. (Duke kisses her hand and exits L. Lucile sits at table R. Alfred enters and lays hand on her arm. She starts up and utters a cry,)
ALFRED.. It was not my fault. I have heard all. Now the letters and farewell, Lucile. When you wed may -- (turns away)
LUCILE. Perhaps this farewell is our last Alfred Vargrave in life. Who can tell? Let us part without bitterness. Here are your letters. (Picks up a packagte of letters) Be assured (with a laugh) I retain you no more in my fetters. (Alfred takes package and thrusts in his breast packet. Extends another package tied with blue ribbon to Lucile. Bows and exits L. Lucile stands a moment gazing at package; then sits at table - the letters drop from the ribbon and scatter on floor. Lucile leans head on table and cries.)
Curtain.
END Act I.
ACT II
(Mountain Scene with Rear. Full Stage. A storm in the mountains. Lucile discovered sitting alone on shelf of a hill; a lake to the right. The lightning plays 'round the rock and the thunder peals. Enter Lord Alfred R. -- 1st Entrance. The lightning approaches Lucile again.)
ALFRED.. (with a cry) Lucile! Here, and alone! (rushes to her) Lucile!
LUCILE. You here! I imagined you far on your way to Bigorre! What has caused you to stay?
ALFRED.. I am on my way to Bigorre: but since my would seem to be yours, let me stay while this storm lasts, beside you and -- forgive me, Lucile. (The lightning approaches again. Alfred seizes her hand. The lightning strikes a tree.)
LUCILE. See! See! Where the lightning has stricken and strangled yon tree. Like the passion that brings on its breath, to the being it embraces, destruction and death! Alfred Vargrave, the lightning is round you!
ALFRED.. Lucile! I hear -- I see -- naught but yourself. I can feel nothing here but your presence. We two meet again, 'neath yon terrible heaven that is watching above to avenge if I lie when I swear that I love; and beneath yonder terrible heaven, at your feet I humble my head and my heart. I entreat your pardon, Lucile, for the past. I implore for the future your mercy — implore it with more of passion than prayer ever breathed. By the rights I have o'er you, Lucile, I demand —
LUCILE. (drawing from him her hand) "The rights!"
ALFRED.. Yes, the rights; for what greater to man may belong, than the right to repair in the future the wrong to the past? I, who injured your life, urge the right to repair it. Lucile, be my wife, my good angel, my all upon earth, and accept, for the sake of what yet may give worth to my life, its contrition.
LUCILE. (with emotion) And your pledge to another?
ALFRED.. Hush, hush! Could I live in the light of those young eyes, suppressing a lie? Alas, no; your hand holds my whole destiny. And the duty best seen, and most hallowed, the duty most sacred and sweet, is that which hath led me, Lucile, to your feet. O, speak, and restore to your own life its youth and restore the vision, the rapture, the passion of yore.
LUCILE. Alfred! (rests her head on his shoulder and he kisses her hair.) GUIDE. (enters R.) The Duke! The Duke! (Alfred and Lucile descend to stage)
DUKE. (enters L.) Ah, Madam Countess, your pardon I crave -
LUCILE. You are injured!
DUKE. Nay, 'tis nothing, Madam. My horse lost his footing and over the perilous brow of the storm-haunted mountain his master did throw but I, being agile, did leap to a stone, and the horse, being bred to the instinct which fills the breast of the wild mountaineers in these hills, scrambled again to his feet. We both bear about some signs of disaster, the horse with his shoulder --
LUCILE. And you with your wrist bruised and bleeding. Let me bind it, I pray. (takes handkerchief) perchance it may lessen the pain for to-day.
DUKE. For to-day! Nay, 'tis gone and forever, Madam. GUIDE. (enters R. To Duke) The horses are ready.
DUKE. Ah, good! (crosses R. To Guide) I will borrow your horse. You follow more slowly with mine. (pointing R.)
LUCILE. (goes front to Alfred) You have made to me, Alfred, an offer I know all the worth of, believe me. I can-not reply without time for reflection. Good-night! Not goodby!
ALFRED. Alas, 'tis the very same answer you made to the Duke de Luvois but a day since.
LUCILE. No, Alfred! the very same, No! If you love me, abide my answer to-morrow.
DUKE. Lord Vargrave, do you go to Serchon?
ALFRED. Yes, our road is the same. GUIDE. (to Lucile) Madam, the horses are ready
DUKE. Allow me to conduct you thither. (both go to Rear}
ALFRED. (gazing after Lucile) "If you love me abide my answer to-morrow."
[Scene III?]
GUIDE. (Enters and gives Lord Alfred a letter. [Alfred] Sits on stone and reads letter. Business of letter.)
"No, Alfred! If over the present, when last we two met rose the glamour and mist of the past, it hath now rolled away, and our two paths are plain and those two paths divide us. True, that meeting which hath been so fatal, I sought, but oh deem not it was with the thought of your heart to regain or the past to re-waken. We meet Alfred Vargrave no more. I, indeed, shall be far from Serchon when this letter your read. My course is decided; my path I discern; doubt is over; my future is fixed now. If there fell any tears on this page, 'twas a friends. So farewell to the past and to you Alfred Vargrave. ... Lucile"
DUKE. (Stands looking at ALFRED.)
ALFRED.. Nay, Lucile, my Lucile! I will seek Matilda, obtain my release and then fly back to thee. (gazes at letter)
DUKE. (insolently) Pray excuse my intruding upon your doubtless sublime reveries. Milord would do better to fold up a letter the writing of which is too well known --
ALFRED.. (Rising) That will do, Duke. Auravoir! (starts L.)
DUKE. (puts himself in path) Hold, Lord Alfred! away with disguise! I will own that I sought you a moment ago to fix on you a quarrel! I still can do so upon any excuse. I love the Countess de Nevers. I believed are you crossed me, and still have the right to believe, that she would have been mine. To her sight you return and the woman is suddenly changed. You! who are now betrothed to another I know; you, whose name with Lucile's nearly ten years ago was coupled by ties which you broke. You; that left her so lightly. I can-not believe that you love, as I love her; nor can I conceive you, indeed, have the right so to love her. Milord (folds arms) I will not thus tamely concede, at your word, what a few days ago I believe to be mine!
I shall yet persevere, I shall yet be, in fine, a rival you dare not despise. It i plain to settle this contest there can but remain one way -- need I say what it is?
ALFRED.. Duke, allow me to explain, that I, too, a fair rival at worst, have not been accepted.
DUKE. (surprised.) Accepted! say first, are you free to have offered? (Alfred makes no reply) Ah! you dare not reply! Why palter with me? You are silent! and why? Because in your conscience you cannot deny 'twas from vanity, wanton and cruel withal, and the wish an accendancy lost to recall sincere, I ask only one word -- Say at once you renounce her. At once, on my part, I will ask your forgiveness with all truth of heart, and there can be no quarrel between us. Say on!
ALFRED.. You have not the right, sir, and still less the power, to make terms and conditions with me. I refuse to reply. (crosses R.)
(Enter a Guide: bows low to Duke and delivers a letter.)
DUKE. (takes letter) Your pardon. (reads) A pressing request from Lucile! You are quite right Lord Alfred! fair rivals at worst. Our relative place may perchance be reversed. You are not accepted, not free to propose. I, perchance, am accepted already, who knows? I had warned you, my lord, I should still persevere. This letter (holds it up) but stay! you can read it -- look here! (hands to Alfred)
ALFRED.. (reads) "Saint Saviour. Your letter which followed me here, makes me stay 'til I see you again. With no moment's delay, I entreat, I conjure you, by all that you feel or profess, to come to me directly. Lucile."
ALFRED.. (returns letter) Your letter! Sir, do not let me detain you!
DUKE. (to guide) Say your dispatch will be answered ere nightfall. (Exit Guide -- take out watch.) Aurevoir, Lord Vargrave. (Exits up Rear).
ALFRED.. (reading letter) "Doubt is over! my course is decided," she says. Her course? What to wed wiith that insolent Frenchman? Even so, those strange words to the Duke; this eager and strange rendezvous. How imprudent! To an unfrequented, lone inn and so late for the night is about to begin, she, companionless there has bidden that man. Horrible! It can-not be! It can-not be!
(Exit Rear. Thunder & Lightning.)
END Scene - Close in - in T[hree?].
ACT II, Scene [III?].
(a room in an Inn. Window L.; table near; door on to a small balcony. Lucile sitting by table [inked illegible phrase: Let in [Duke?] Center-door Rear.])
(Enter the Duke R.)
NEGRESS. (opens door) My mistress awaits you.
DUKE. (springs forward) You relent? And your plans have been changed by the letter I sent?
LUCILE. (rising) Your letter! Yes, Duke: for it threatens man's life - woman's honor.
DUKE. The last Madam, not!
LUCILE. (picks up letter) Both, I glance at your words; blush, son of the knighthood of France, as I read them. You say in this letter (opening it) "I know why, now, you refuse me; 'tis (is it not so?) for the man who has trifled before, wantonly, and now trifles again with the heart you deny to yourself. But he shall not! By man's last wild law, I will seize on the right (the right, Duke de Luvois!) to avenge for you, woman, the past, and to give to the future its freedom. That man shall not live to make you wretched as you have made me!"
DUKE. Well, Madam, in those words what word do you see that threatens the honor of the woman?
LUCILE. What word, do you say? Every word! Would you not had I taken your hand thus, have felt that your name was soiled and dishonored by more than mere shame, if the woman who bore it had first been the cause of the crime which in these words is menaced? Woman's honor, you ask? Is there, sir, no dishonor in the smile of a woman, when man gazing on her can shudder and say, "In that smile is a grave?" No, Duke, you have no right in the contest you menace. That contest but draws every right into ruin. By all human laws of man's heart, I forbid it -- by all sanctities of man's social honor.
DUKE. I obey you; but Madam, yours was the right, when you saw that I hoped to extinguish hope quite; but you should from the first have done this, for I feel that you knew from the first that I loved you.
LUCILE. (raises her eyes, startled, gazes long and then approaches him.) Hear me,
DUKE. You say that to me from the first it was clear that you loved me. But what if this knowledge were known at a moment in life when I felt most alone. Do you still blame, Duke, that I did not then bid you refrain from hope? Alas, I, too, then hoped!
DUKE. O, again, yet again, say that thrice blessed word! say, Lucile, that you then deigned to hope --
LUCILE. Yes, to hope I could feel and could give you a heart free from thoughts of another.
DUKE. O, Lucile!
LUCILE. (gazing down in faltering tone) Do you blame me that when I at last had to own to my heart that the hope I had cherished was o'er and forever, I said to you then "Hope no more"? I --
DUKE. (with suppressed wrath) What, then! he re-crosses you path, this man, and you have but to see him, despite of his troth to another, to take back the light, worthless heart to your own which he wronged years ago.
LUCILE. No, no! Tis not that -- but, alas, I can-not conceal that I have not forgotten the past -- I can-not accept all these gifts on your part -- rank, wealth, love, esteem, in return for a heart which is only a ruin.
DUKE. (stretching out arms) Though ruined it be, since so dear is that ruin, ah, yield it to me. (Lucile shrinks back) Am I right? You reject me; accept him?
LUCILE. (firmly) I have not done so.
DUKE. (hoarsely) Not yet -- no! But can you accents as firm promise me that you will not accept him?
LUCILE. Accept? Is he free? Free to offer?
DUKE. You evade me,
LUCILE. He might make himself free. (Lucile turns away) Oh, you blush, turn away! Dare you openly look in my face, lady, say! while you deign to reply to one question from me? I may hope not, you tell me: but tell me, may he? (Lucile stands silent) What! silent? I alter my question. If quite freed in faith from this troth, might he hope then?"
LUCILE. (sits - softly) He might.
DUKE. (stares around place; follows her) He might! Never, never! You are mine forever! (Lucile turns, looks at him) Look around this lone place. You and I here to-gather. Look into my face and then stop and consider. Don't think I'll relinquish the battle thus won. You leave here as mine or you leave here -- (whispers in her ear)
LUCILE. (Rises -- looks at him; he falls back and she passes him to door R.) Adieu! We, alas, have mistaken each other. One more illusion to-night in my lifetime is o'er. Duke de Luvois, adieu! (passes out)
DUKE. O, return, I repent! (springs forward and opens door R., listens) Nevermore! nevermore! (goes to window and listens: sound of carriage wheels) Gone, gone forever! PORTER. (Outside) Madam has gone -- (Duke grabs his had and steps on balcony as Lord Alfred and Porter enter room.)
ALFRED.. And the Duke (Porter stares stupidly - shakes head) He, the stranger who has been here? PORTER. (looking round with a leer) He, oh, ay, ay! He went with the lady!
ALFRED.. You can go. (Exit porter) What! with him? Gone with him! I will not believe it! (drops in chair at table. DUKE looks in from balcony) she can-not have sinned. True, women there are, self-named women of mind who love rather liberty; liberty to choose and to leave then the legalized stress of the most brilliant marriage. But she, is she so? I will not believe it. Lucile! O, no, no! Not Lucile! Not Lucile! p align="center">Curtain - End Act II.
Act III.
Scene I. Time -- three years later. Scene - Ems Springs. A garden with [illegible] into a "Pavilion of Chance". Table with Alfred and others engaged in playing roulette. Matilda, Duke and others engaged in conversation in garden.
Enter Lucile R. with two or three followers.
ALFRED.. (plays and loses) Misfortune follows me! (rises. Lucile turns and sees him. He glances in her direction) Lucile! (goes to her) Once more we meet!
LUCILE. Yes, Lord Vargrave.
DUKE. (to himself) Lucile de Nevers once again then? so be it!
MATILDA. Duke?
ALFRED.. (puts on Lucile's wrap) Pray let us walk in the garden awhile and talk over the days that are past (Lucile smiles assent and they saunter through the garden R.)
DUKE. So they meet thus: and reweave the old charms, and she hangs on his voice, and she leans on his arm! O, what if I showed her that I, too, can be Loved by one her own rival more fair and more young? (glances at Matilda who is watching Lucile) Ah, Lady Vargrave, you see her then?
MATILDA. (hesitating) You know then this -- lady?
DUKE. Too well! The beautiful countess whom none can resist.
MATILDA. (caressing a white rose) You describe her as possessed of a charm all unrivaled.
DUKE. Alas, you mistook me completely. You Madam, surpass this counte as moonlight does lamplight. As youth surpasses her best imitations.
MATILDA. Yet you said you quite comprehended a passion so strong as --
DUKE. True, true! but not in a man that has once looked on you. Nor can I conceive -- or excuse --
MATILDA. Hush, hush!
DUKE. The name that you bear it is whispered you took from love, not convention. Well, lady, that look so excited, so keen on the face you must know throughout all its expressions -- that rapturous grow, those eloquent features, significant eyes which that pale woman sees yet betrays no surprise, have you ever seen what just now you may view in that face so familiar? No, lady, 'tis new. Young, lovely and loving, no doubt, as you are, are you loved?
MATILDA. 'Tis three years since the day when I first was a bride, and my husband I never had cause to suspect, nor ever have stooped, sir, such cause to detect. Yet if in his looks or his acts I should see -— see -- or fancy -—some moment's oblivion of me, I trust that I too should forget it -— for you must have seen that my heart is my husband's.
DUKE. But were it not cruel to expose a peril unjust and most cruel that happy repose you so trust, to meet and receive a woman whose place rivals yours, in the heart and the life, which not only your title of wife, but, (forgive me) your beauty alone, should have made wholly yours.
MATILDA. Sir, the while I thank you for your fervor in painting my fancied distress, allow me the right some surprise to express at the zeal you betray in disclosing to me the possible depth of my own misery.
DUKE. That zeal would not startle you, Madam, could you read in my heart, as myself I have read, the peculiar interest which causes that zeal.
MATILDA. (drops rose) I continue to hear, but permit me to say I no more understand. (starts to go)
DUKE. (stopping her) Forgive, oh, forgive me! for I that you wrong me. (Matilda sits,- the Duke beside her) Beneath an exterior which seems, and may be, worldly, frivolous, careless, my heart hides in me a sorrow which draws me to side with all things that suffer. (Matilda laughs lightly) Nay, laugh not, at so strange an avowal --
MATILDA. Your life it would seem, then, must be one long act of devotion.
DUKE. Perhaps so! But one day may yet come, when perceiving at last, all the difference how great! Twixt the heart that neglects, and the heart that can wait, some woman might pause with a smile to repay this devotion, -— and then --
(Enter Alfred and Lucile R.)
MATILDA. (rises and crosses to center) My husband. (Alfred, Lucile & Matilda converse)
DUKE. (goes L. and adjusts his collar) Good! the gods fight my battle to-night. I foresee that the family doctor's the part I must play. Very well! but the patients my visits shall pay. (turns and bows sullenly to Lucile)
LUCILE. What! The Duke de Luvois! (The Duke approaches. Lucile glances from him to MATILDA.)
DUKE. (to Lucile) Madam de Nevers!
LUCILE. Duke! (They all approach the door. Alfred & Matilda Exit. Lucile having fallen back by the
DUKE.) You remain, Duke, at Ems?
DUKE. (maliciously) Perchance I have here (glancing at Matilda) an attraction. And you? (Lucile discerning his boast glances at Matilda) And you?
LUCILE. I remain, too. (Lucile Exits.)
(Re-enter Alfred.)
DUKE. (lighting a cigar) Once more! yet once more!
ALFRED. What? (cigar in hand)
DUKE. We meet her, once more, the woman for whom we two madmen of yore (Laugh, mon cher Alfred, laugh!) were about to destroy each other!
ALFRED. It is not with laughter that I raise the ghost of that once troubled time. Say! can you recall it with coolness and quietude now?
DUKE. Now? yes! I, mon cher, am a true Parisian. Now, the red revolution, the tocsin, and then the dance and the play. (sits L.) I am now at the play.
ALFRED. At the play, are you now? Then perchance I now may presume, Duke, to ask you what, ever until such a moment, I waited --
DUKE. Oh! ask what you will. On the table my cards I spread out. Ask!
ALFRED. Duke, you were called to a meeting (no doubt you remember it yet) with
LUCILE. It was night when you went. When next we met you accosted me then with a brow bright with triumph: your words (you remember them now) were "Let us be friends!"
DUKE. Well?
ALFRED. How then, after that can you and she meet as acquaintances?
DUKE. (rising) What! Did she not then, herself, the Comtesse de Nevers solve your riddle to-night with those soft lips of hers?
ALFRED. In our converse to-night we avoided the past, but the question I ask should be answered at last -- by you, if you will; if you will not, by her.
DUKE. Indeed? but that question, milord, can it stir such an interest in you, if your passion be o'er?
ALFRED. Yes. Esteem may remain, although love be no more. Lucile asked me this night, to my wife (understand, To MY WIFE) to present her. I did so. Her hand has clasped that of MATILDA. We gentlemen owe respect to the name that is ours: and, if so, to the woman that bears it a twofold respect. Answer, Duc de Luvois! Did Lucile then reject the proffer you made of your hand and your name, or did you on her love then relinquish a claim urged before? I ask bluntly this question, because my title to do so is clear by the laws that all gentlemen honor. Make one sign that you know of Lucile de Nevers aught, in fine, for which, if your own virgin sister were by, from Lucile you would shield her acquaintance, and I and Matilda leave Ems on the morrow.
DUKE. (crosses R.: aside.) Leave Ems! No, that were again to mar all. (turns) Nay! Madame de Nevers had rejected me. In those days, I was mad; and in some mad reply, I threatened the life of the rival to whom that rejection was due. She feared for his life; and the letter dhe wrote me I showed you. We met and again my hand was refused, and my love was denied. "I did not go with the lady!" (Alfred starts and looks at him, Duke laughs and shrugs) And the glance you mistook was the vizard which Pride lends to Humiliation. And so in this best world, 'tis all for the best. (jestingly) You are wedded (blessed Englishman) wedded to one whose past can be called into question by none, and I, fickle Frenchman, can still laugh to feel I am lord of myself; and the Mode. Lucile still shines from her pedestal, frigid and fair as yon German moon o'er the linden-tops there. (going) Stay at Ems, Alfred Vargrave. (Exits R.)
ALFRED. 'Twas to rescue my life, gentle spirit! For this did I doubt her! The mistake of a moment. For this I forsook -- Pardon, pardon, Lucile! O Lucile! (Sinks in chair L.)
Lucile enters slowly.
ALFRED. Thank the good stars, we meet! I have so much to say to you!
LUCILE. (sadly) Yes? and I too was wishing, indeed, to say somewhat to you. (sitting)
ALFRED. You are ill?
LUCILE. No, no!
ALFRED. You alarm me!
LUCILE. If your thoughts have of late sought, or cared, to divine the purpose of what has been passing in mine, my farewell can scarcely alarm you."
ALFRED. Lucile! Your farewell! you go!
LUCILE. Yes, Lord
ALFRED..
ALFRED. Reveal the cause of this sudden unkindness.
LUCILE. Unkind?
ALFRED. Yes! what else is this parting?
LUCILE. No, no! are you blind? Look into your own heart and home. Can you see no reason for this, save unkindness in me? Look into the eyes of your wife -—.
ALFRED. Lucile! Let me speak of the past. I know now, alas! though I know it too late, what passed at that meeting which settled my fate. (Lucile tried to interrupt) Nay! nay, interrupt me not yet! let it be! I but say what is due to yourself -— due to me and must say it. Lucile I speak not of love now, nor loves lone regret, I would not offend you, nor dare I forget the ties that are 'round us. But may there not be a friendship yet hallowed between you and me? O Lucile answer, "Yes."
LUCILE. Alas, departed, for us, are the days when with innocence we could discuss dreams like these. Fled, indeed, are the dreams of my life. O trust me, the best friend you have is your wife. I felt on my brow not one blush when I first took her hand. With no blush shall I clasp it to-night, when I leave you. (Alfred tries to interrupt) "Hush! hush! I would say what I wished to have said when you came. Do not think that years leave us and find us the same. The woman you knew long ago, long ago, is no more. You yourself have within you, I know, the germ of a joy in the years yet to be, whereby the past years will bear fruit. What is more, you will wake up and find this slumber is o'er, at your right hand a heart destined, trust me, to prove the fulfillment of all you have dreamed of in love. Trust a woman' opinion for once. Women learn, by an instinct men never attain, to discern each other's true nature. Matilda is fair (lays hand on his arm) O is she not, say, to love and be loved?
ALFRED. Matilda is young, and Matilda is fair. Of all that you tell me pray deem me aware; but Matilda's a statue, Matilda's a child; Matilda loves not -—
LUCILE. Yesterday, all that you say might be true; it is false, wholly false, though, today.
ALFRED. How? what mean you?
LUCILE. I mean that to-day the statue with life has become vivified. I mean that the child to a woman has grown, and that woman is jealous.
ALFRED. What, she? She jealous! Matilda? of whom, pray? not me!
LUCILE. My lord, you deceive yourself; no one but you is she jealous of. And who shall declare if for months she has known what for days she has known all too keenly, I fear, that knowledge perchance might have cost you dear?"
ALFRED. Explain! explain, madam!
LUCILE. How blind are you men! Can you doubt that a woman, young, fair, and neglected -—
ALFRED. (rising) Speak out! Lucile! you -- mean -— what? Do you doubt her fidelity?
LUCILE. Certainly not. (Alfred drops into a seat again) Listen to me, my friend. Your honor, Lord Alfred, and that of your wife, are dear to me -— most dear. And I am convinced that you rashly are risking that honor.
ALFRED. (terrified) Stay, Lucile! What in truth do you mean by those words, vaguely framed to alarm me? Matilda? my wife? do you know?
LUCILE. I know that your wife is as spotless as snow. But I know not how far your continued neglect, her nature, as well as her heart, might affect. For jealousy is to a woman, be sure, a disease healed too oft by a criminal cure; and the heart left too long to its ravage, in time, may find weakness in virtue, reprisal in crime. MATILDA. Such thoughts could have never, I know, reached the heart of Matilda.
LUCILE. Matilda? oh no! But reflect! when such thoughts do not come of themselves to the heart of a woman neglected, there rarely is wanting some voice some voice at her side, with an evil enchanting to conjure them to her.
ALFRED. (rising and clenching his fists) Woe to him who should feel such a hope, for I swear, if he did but reveal one glimpse it should be the last hope of his life.
LUCILE. You forget that you menace yourself. You yourself are the man that is guilty. Then oh, Alfred! be juster at heart: and thank Heaven that Heaven to your wife such a nature has given that you have not wherewith to reproach her, albeit you have cause to reproach your own self, could you see it. (extending her hand). And now?
ALFRED. Lucile, I both understand and obey you.
LUCILE. Thank Heaven! (turns R.)
ALFRED. Yet, one word, I beseech you! I cannot forget we are parting for life. You have shown my pathway to me: but say, what is your own?
LUCILE. (nervously) Nay, I know not. I follow the way Heaven leads me. I cannot foresee to what end. I know only that far, far away it must tend from all places in which we have met, or might meet. Far away -—onward -- upward!
ALFRED. Wheresoever it be, may all gentlest angels attend you, and bear my heart's blessing wherever you are. (kisses her hand)
LUCILE. Adieu, Alfred, Adieu. (Exit R. - Alfred stands watching her off.)
ALFRED. Never again! Never again! (Exits R.)
Enter Matilda L.
MATILDA. Ah me! (listens. starts to go)
Enter Duke R. 2nd [Rn].
DUKE. (intercepting her) Ah, lady! in life there are meetings which seem like a fate. Dare I think like a sympathy too? Yet what else can I bless for this vision of you? Alone with my thoughts, on this starlighted lawn, by an instinct resistless, I felt myself drawn to revisit the memories left in the place where so lately this evening I looked in your face. And I find -— you, yourself -— my own dream. Can there be in this world one thought common to you and to me? If so --
MATILDA. (interrupting) I sought here a moment of solitude, silence and thought which I needed.
DUKE. Lives solitude only for one? Cannot two share it? What needs it for this? The same thought in both hearts -— be it sorrow or bliss. If my heart be the reflex of yours, lady,-— you, are you not yet alone even though we be two?
MATILDA. For that -- needs were, you should read what I have in my heart.
DUKE. Think you, lady, indeed, you are yet of that age when a woman conceals in her heart completely, whatever she feels, from the heart of the man whom it interests to know and find out what that feeling may be? (Matilda sighs) Ah, not so, Lady Alfred! Forgive me that in it I look, but I read in your heart as I read in a book.
MATILDA. Well, Duke! and what read you within it unless it be, of a truth, a profound weariness and some sadness?
DUKE. You are sad, Lady Alfred, because the first need of a young and a beautiful woman is to love and be loved. You are sad for you see that you are not beloved, as you deemed that you were.
MATILDA. (retreatingly) What gave you such strange power?
DUKE. (following her) To read in your thoughts? O, lady, a love -- deep, profound -— be it blamed or rejected. A love -- true, intense -— such, at least, as you, and you only, could wake in my heart.
MATILDA. (retreating). Cease, cease, I conjure you, to trouble my life! Is not Alfred your friend? And am I not is wife?
DUKE. And have I not, lady, respected his rights as a friend, 'til himself he neglected your rights as a wife? I knew, years ago, of the singular power which Lucile o'er your husband possessed. 'Til the hour in which he revealed it himself, did I,- — say!— by a word, or a look, such a secret betray? No! no! do me justice. But now -- now that his love or another hath left your heart free to rove I ask --
(Enter Lucile L.)
MATILDA. Duke! Duke, for Heaven's sake let me go! It is late. In the house they will miss me, I know. We must not be seen here together. The night is advancing. I feel overwhelmed with affright. It is time to return to my lord.
DUKE. (reproachfully) To your lord! To your lord? Do you think he awaits you in truth? Is he anxiously missing your presence, forsooth? Return to your lord? His restraint to renew, and hinder the glances that are not for you? No, no, at this moment his looks seek the face of another. Another is there in your place; another consoles him, another receives the soft speech which from silence your absence relieves.
LUCILE. (going center) You mistake, sir! that other is here! MATILDA. Lucile!
DUKE. Ho, ho! What! eaves-dropping, madam? And so you were listening?"
LUCILE. Say rather, that I heard without wishing to hear it, that infamous word -- heard, and therefore -- reply.
DUKE. Belle Comtesse, you know that your place is not here.
LUCILE. Duke, my place is wherever my duty is clear, and therefore my place, at this moment, is here. (turns to Matilda) Tis, O lady, the honor your husband has confided to you, that in spite of his friend, I now trust I may yet save to-night. Save for both of you, lady, for yours I revere. Duke de Luvois, what say you my place is not here? (throws arm 'round Matilda, who lays her head on Lucile's bosom.).
CURTAIN - End Act III.
Act IV.
Scene I. (A sitting-room with [illegible penned in]. Lord Alfred discovered. Noise outside; door flung open R.)
Enter Cousin John.
ALFRED.. (rising) What! You, Jack! JOHN. (busily removing hat and coat) Why -- yes, of course, it is I.
ALFRED. (takes chairs. Alfred scans John's face.) What's the matter? What have you to tell me?
JOHN. What! have you not heard?
ALFRED. Heard what?
JOHN. This sad business—
ALFRED. I? no, not a word.
JOHN. You received my last letter?
ALFRED. I think so. If not, what then?
JOHN. You have acted upon it?
ALFRED. On what?
JOHN. The advice that I gave you.
ALFRED. Advice? let me see? You always are giving advice, Jack, to me. (thoughtfully) About Parliament, was it?
JOHN. Hang Parliament! No. The Bank, the Bank, Alfred!
ALFRED. What Bank?
JOHN. Heavens! I know you are careless;— but surely you have not forgotten or neglected? I warned you the whole thing was rotten. You have drawn those deposits at least?
ALFRED. No, I meant to have written to-day; but the note shall be sent to-morrow, however.
JOHN. To-morrow! Too late, too late! oh, what devil bewitched you to wait?
ALFRED. Mercy save us! you don't mean to say --
JOHN. Yes, I do.
ALFRED. What! Sir Ridley?
JOHN. Smashed, broken, blown up, bolted too!
ALFRED. But his own niece? (John shakes his head) In Heaven's name, Jack --
JOHN. Oh, I told you the old hypocritical scoundrel would --
ALFRED. Hold! you surely can't mean we are ruined?
JOHN. Sit down! A fortnight ago a report about town made me most apprehensive. Alas, I at once wrote and warned you. A run on the Bank about five days ago confirmed my forebodings too terribly though. I drove down to the city at once; found the door of the Bank closed: the Bank had stopped payment at four. Next morning the failure was known to be fraud. Warrant out for McNab but McNab was abroad. Gone -— we can not tell where. What was left but join you as fast as I could, my dear Alfred? (Alfred looks aghast) Courage, courage! bear the blow like a man!
ALFRED. I bear it. But Matilda? the blow is to her!
JOHN. Matilda? Pooh, pooh! I half think I know the girl better than you. She has courage enough and to spare. She cares less than most women for luxury, nonsense, and dress.
ALFRED. The fault has been mine.
JOHN. Be it yours to repair it: if you did not avert, you may help her to bear it.
ALFRED. I might have averted.
JOHN. Perhaps so. But now there is clearly no use in considering how or whence, came the mischief. Broken shins are not mended by crying -— that's clear! One has but to rub them and get up again and push on. You must stir and arouse yourself Alfred, for her sake.
ALFRED. O Jack, I have been a brute idiot! a beast! A fool! I have sinned, and to her I have sinned! (lays head on table)
JOHN. (Looks at him, then approaches and lays hand on his shoulder) Where is she?
ALFRED. (motions toward doors) There, I think. (clock strikes twelve)
JOHN. It is time she should know what has happened: let us go to her now.
ALFRED. (starts to feet) One moment, dear Jack. Thank you, cousin, your hand. But now I will go alone, Jack. Trust to me. (going)
JOHN. I do; but 'tis late, if she sleeps, you'll not wake her?
ALFRED. No, no! If she sleeps I will not mar her dreams of to-morrow. Good-night, Jack.
(Enter Matilda Center. Alfred takes her in his arms and kisses her.)
MATILDA. O, Alfred, O, Alfred, forgive me, forgive me!
ALFRED. Forgive you, my poor child; but I never have blamed you for aught that I know, and I have not one thought that reproaches you now. (lead her to a couch) This chamber in which we sit, side by side, is now a confessional -- you, my confessor.
MATILDA. (timidly) I?
ALFRED. Yes: but first answer one question. When a woman once feels that she is not alone, that the heart of another is warmed by her own, that a man, for her sake will so long as he lives, live to put forth the strength which the thought of her gives: will that woman feel less than another, O say, the loss of what life, sparing this, takes away?
MATILDA. That woman, indeed were thrice blest!
ALFRED. Then courage, true wife of my heart. (rises) When I passed through that door, I left there a calamity, sudden and heavy to bear.
MATILDA. (rising) Calamity, Alfred: to you?
ALFRED. To both, my poor child.
MATILDA. O speak!
ALFRED. Matilda, the fortune you brought me is gone!
MATILDA. (wonderingly) Gone!
ALFRED. But a prize richer far than that fortune has won, it is yours to confer. 'Tis the heart of my wife. (opens his arms)
MATILDA. O take with the faith I have pledged as a wife, the heart I have learned as a woman to feel, for I love you, my husband! (goes to him)
(Close in, in One.) End Scene I.
ACT IV. Scene II.
(Early morn in the garden at Ems. Lucile discovered. Enter the Duke back center).
DUKE. (grasps her wrist) At last, and alone -- I am thou, Lucile de Nevers, have we met! (Lucile starts). Hush, I know not for me was the tryst. Never mind -— it is mine; and whatever led hither those proud steps of thine, they remove not, until we have spoken. My hour is come; and it holds me and thee in its power, as the darkness holds both the horizons.
LUCILE. Continue, I listen to hear.
DUKE. (paces restlessly to and fro and then stops) Lucile dost thou dare to look into my face? (Lucile shudders) Is the sight so repugnant? ha, well! canst thou trace one word of thy writing in this wicked scroll, with thine own name scrawled through it, defacing a soul? (He turns again and begin his restless stride) Lucile! you shudder to look in my face; do you feel no reproach when you look in your own heart?
LUCILE. No, Duke: in my conscience, I do not deserve your rebuke. Not yours!
DUKE. Woman, what hast thou done with my youth? Give me back the young heart that I gave thee -- in vain!
LUCILE. Duke! (falteringly)
DUKE. Yes, yes! I was not always thus. hat I once was I have not forgot. (soliloquizing) Woe to him, that hath kissed and caroused cheek by jowl, with the harlot Corruption, and drained her wild bowl! (Turns to her) But shame, shame and sorrow, O woman, to thee, whose hand sowed the seed of destruction in me! Whose lip taught the first lesson of falsehood to mine: whose looks first made me doubt lies that looked so divine! My soul by thy beauty was slain in its sleep, and if tears I mistrust, 'tis that thou too canst weep.
LUCILE. And you say and deem you that I wrecked your life? Alas, Duke, had I been your wife, by a friend of the heart, which could yield you alone for the love in your nature a lie in my own, should I not in deceiving have injured you worse? Yes, I then should have merited justly your curse, for I then should have wronged you.
DUKE. Wronged? You could never have loved me?
LUCILE. (reproachfully) Duke!
DUKE. (laughs fiercely) Yet lady, you knew that I loved you. You led my love on to lay to its heart hour by hour, all the pale, cruel, beautiful, passionless power shut up in that cold face of yours. But enough! not on you would I vent the wild hell which has grown in my heart. On that man, first and last he tramples in triumph my life. Let it pass: my hate yet may find him.
LUCILE. Alas! these words space me the pain of reply. Duke de Luvois, farewell! (going R.) I shall try to forget every word I have heard, every sight that has grieved and appalled me in this wretched night which must witness our final farewell. May you, Duke never know greater cause your own heart to rebuke, than mine thus to wrong and afflict you have had. Adieu!
DUKE. (stopping her) Stay, Lucile, stay! I mad, I know no what I said. Forgive me! I have so wronged you, Lucile? forgive me, forgive me.
LUCILE. I feel only sad, far, far too sad for resentment. (turns to go)
DUKE. Do no, do not depart thus Lucile, stay one moment. I know why you shrink, why you shudder. I read in your face what you think. Do not speak to me of it. I feel I have sinned. Yet to-night you won a great battle from me. Teach, O, teach, me to bear the defeat I have merited.
LUCILE. Could I help you, my heart would bless Heaven, indeed, if before we thus part I could rescue from out of the wild work of this night one holier memory, one gleam of light out of this darkness. But what can I say? This deep sense of pity seems utterless.
DUKE. Nay, I have suffered: but yet do not think, that, whatever my fate, I have shrunk, or do shrink. The love that I gave you, alas! was the sole love life gave me. It perished, and all perished with it. Ambition? Wealth left nothing to add to my social condition. Fame? But fame in itself presupposes some great field wherein to pursue and attain it. the State? I, to cringe to an upstart? The Camp? I, to draw from its sheath the old sword of the Dukes de Luvois to defend usurpation? Books, then? Science, Art? But, alas! I was fashioned for action. By the laws of a fate I can neither control nor dispute I am what I am.
LUCILE. Man's life was made not for men's creeds but men's actions. Is the land of our birth less the land of our birth, or its claim the less strong, or its cause the less worth our upholding, because the white lily no more is as sacred as all that it bloomed for of yore? Yet be that as it may be; I cannot perchance judge this matter. I am but a woman, and France has for me simpler duties. Eugene De Luvois (pleadingly) in life we have met once again and once more life parts us. Yon day-spring for me lifts the veil of a future in which it may be we shall meet never more. Grant, oh grant to me yet the belief that it is not in vain we have met.
I plead for a hope, for a memory. Let the hope be your own, be the memory mine. (Church chimes ring. Eugene sinks on his knees. Lucile raises her eyes to Heaven. Chimes cease. He rises, gazes at her, then sinks on one knee, their eyes meet as he begins next speech)
DUKE. O, soul, to its sources departing away, pray for mine, if one soul for another may pray. I to ask have no right, thou to give hast no power one hope to my heart. But in this parting hour I name not my heart and I speak not to thine. Answer, soul of Lucile, to this dark soul of mine -- does not soul owe to soul, what to heart denies -- Hope, when hope is salvation?
LUCILE. Ay, Eugene.
DUKE. (rising) Thus, then, we part, once again soul from soul, as before heart from heart!
LUCILE. Our two paths must part us Eugene; but this I will promise: whatever your path or my own, if for once in the conflict before you, it chance that the dragon prevail, and with cleft shield, and lance, you falter and hesitate, if from afar, still watching, should see that my presence could rescue, support you, or guide, in the hour of that need I shall be at your side, to warn, if you will, or incite, or control; and again, once again, we shall meet, soul to soul! (The sun which has been slowly rising envelopes Lucile in his rays.)
Curtain. End Act IV.
ACT V. Scene I.
(Time twenty-five years later. Scene -- Field of Battle. Arthur Vargrave discovered laying on cot in Tent. Enter the Soeur Seraphine. Stands by his cot and lays hand on his brow.)
BOY. (faintly) Say what thou art, blessed dream of a saintly and ministering spirit?
SOEUR S. As thou knowest -- the Soeur Seraphine, a poor Sister of Charity.
BOY. Yes -- but?
SISTER S. Shun to inquire aught further, young soldier. The son of thy sire for the sake of that sire I reclaim from the grave. Thou didst not shun death: shun not life: 'Tis more brave to live than to die.
BOY. If thou be of the living and not of the dead, whence art thou?"
SISTER S. O son of Matilda and Alfred, it matters not! One who is not of the living nor yet of the dead. To thee, and to others alive yet so long as there liveth the poor gift in me of this ministration. To them, and to thee dead in all things beside. A French Nun, whose vocation is by this bedside. A nun hath no nation. Wherever man suffers or woman may sooth there her land! there her kindred! (smooths his pillow) Yet more than another is thy life dear to me, for thy father, thy mother, I knew them, I know them.
BOY. Oh, can it be? you? My father, my mother! You knew them, you know them? (SOEUR S.. holds up two letters) Do they know I am thus?
SOEUR S. They know you are living; they know that meanwhile I am watching beside you. (She lays her hand on his) I have healed the wounds of the body, why hast thou concealed, young soldier, the yet open wound in the heart? Will thou trust no hand near it?
BOY. (starts bitterly). What? Lies my heart, then, so bare?
SOEUR S. Nay, do you think that these eyes are with sorrow, young man, so all unfamiliar, indeed, as to scan her features, yet know them not? as it spoken, 'Go ye forth, heal the sick, lift the low, bind the broken, of the body alone? Is our mission, then, done, when we leave the bruised hearts if we bind the bruised bone? Nay, is not the mission of mercy twofold? Trust to me! (takes his hand in hers) Trust to me! I am not so dead to all. I have died to in this world, but what I recall enough of its sorrow, enough of its trial, to grieve for both -— save from both haply! O, trust to me!
BOY. (brokenly) I'll try. I will try. 'Twas in Paris I met the niece of -- what need of the name?
SOEUR S. Nay, as thou wilt.
BOY. Seeing her, how could I but love her. I seemed born to love her. My love (ah, there lay the bitterer part of the pain) was returned by Constance. But he -- for some reason explained not to us refused his consent, and wrote saying: "If my niece ever wishes to behold me again, she will never wed that man." We parted. News reached me, however, that Constance seemed visibly drooping and dying away.
SOEUR S. (draws her [i.e., his] head to her bosom) O why should I live! (weeps)
SOEUR S. Young soldier, weep not. Sleep, sweetly sleep! (lay his head on pillow. Rises. Business of Tent. Leaves Tent.) Hath it, Eugene, been so long, then, the struggle, and yet all in vain? Nay, not all in vain! Shall the world gain a man and yet Heaven lose a soul? Have I done all I can? Soul to soul, did he say? Soul to soul, be it so! And then -— soul of mine, whither? whither? Here, at last, I have failed not -- this is well. (opens one and reads) "The pledge of a love owed to thee, O Lucile! The hope of a home saved by thee -— of a heart which hath never since then ceased to bless thee, to pray for thee, save, save my son, and if not -- Heaven help us! Matilda." (reads from the other) "To sue for consent pride forbids; and the hope my old foe might relent, experience rejects. My life for the boys! for I die with my son, if he dies. Lucile! Heaven bless you for all you have done! Save him, save him, Lucile! save my son! save my son! Alfred."
Ay, heart to heart! There, at least, I have failed not! Fulfilled is my part? Accomplish'd my mission? One act crowns the whole. Do I linger? Nay, be it so, then. Soul to soul!
[Scene II]
(Business & Exit. Table & chair brought in. The General enters site & bends over reports. An officer stands beside him.)
COLONEL. We owe much to the angel solicitous care of the Sisters of Charity, one, of whom, is known through the camp as a seraph of grace. I have seen her, all have seen her, indeed, in each place where suffering is seen, silent, active -- the Soeur -- Seraphine. Is it not so?
GENERAL. Ay, truly, of her I have heard much, and we owe her already (unless rumor lies) the lives of not few of our bravest. You mean -- Ay, how do they call her?... the Soeur —- Seraphine. Is it not so? I rarely forget names once heard.
COLONEL. Yes; the Soeur Seraphine. Her I meant.
GENERAL. On my word I have much wished to see her. I fancy I trace in some facts traced to her, something more than the grace of an angel! I mean an acute human mind, ingenious, constructive, intelligent. Find, and if possible, let her come to me. We shall I think, aid each other.
COLONEL. Oui, mon GENERAL. I believe she has lately obtained the permission to tend some sick man in the Second Division of our Ally; they say a relation.
GENERAL. A relation?
COLONEL. 'Tis said so."
GENERAL. The name do you know?
COLONEL. Non, mon GENERAL.
(Enter a Messenger)
MESSENGER. (salutes) A Sister of Charity craves, in a case of urgent and serious importance, the grace of a brief, private speech with the General there. Will the General speak with her?
GENERAL. Bid her declare her mission.
MESSENGER. She will not. She craves to be seen and be heard.
GENERAL. Well, her name then?
MESSENGER. The Soeur Seraphine.
GENERAL. The Soeur Seraphine! Strange! One speaks of the sun and behold its rays! Hasten Colonel! Clear the tent. (to Messenger) She may enter. (Exit Colonel and Messenger. Duke rises)
(Enter the Soeur Seraphine. C.)
Sit, Holy Sister! your worth is well known to the hearts of our soldiers, nor less to my own. I have much wish'd to see you. I owe you some thanks in the name of all those you have saved to our ranks. I record them. Sit! Now then, your mission? (The Nun is silent. The General eyes her keenly, looks troubled and mutters.) Strange! strange! Any face should so strongly remind me of her. Fool! again the delirium, the dream! does it stir! Does it move as of old? Psha! (to the Sister) Sit, Sister! I wait your answer: my time halts but hurriedly. State the cause why you seek me?
SOEUR S.. (vaguely) The cause? ay, the cause! (pauses, droops her head and folds her hands on her bosom, fixes her eyes on him.) Eugene de Luvois, the cause which recalls me again to your side is a promise that rests unfulfilled I come to fulfill it.
GENERAL. (springs up, presses hand as in doubt o'er his face, cautiously creeps toward her, lays a hand on her shoulder and gazes in her face. Then staggers backward.) Lucile! Thus we meet, then? here? thus?
SOEUR S.. Soul to soul, ay, Eugene, as I pledged you my word that we should meet again. dead, long dead! all that lived in our lives -- thine and mine -- saving that which even life's self survives -- the soul! 'Tis my soul seeks thine own. To thy soul I would speak. May I do so?
GENERAL. (sits) Speak to me.
SOEUR S.. (sits) Let the Nun, then, retrace the life of the soldier -- the pride of a nation, a world' just acclaim! Oh, apart, unseen, far away, I have watched, year by year, with many a blessing, many a tear and many a prayer every stage in the strife. Blessed the man in the man's work.
GENERAL. Thy, oh, not mine. Thine Lucile, all the worth of it thine, if worth there be in it.
SOEUR S.. (looks at him gratefully) I come from the bedside of a man that is dying. While we speak a life is in jeopardy.
GENERAL. (springing up) Quick then! you seek aid or medicine or what?
SOEUR S.. Medicine? Yes, for the mind. (Eugene sinks back) 'Tis a heart that needs aid. You, Eugene de Luvois, you, and you only, can save the life of this man. Will you have it?
GENERAL. What man? How? Can you ask?
SOEUR S.. 'Tis the son of Matilda and Alfred who lies half a mile from this tent door -- wounded, seemingly dying -- yet a word may restore him. Half slain in his tent I found him: won from him the tale of his love for your niece: sought to nurse him back to life but found my efforts fail, beaten back by a love that was stronger than life. (Eugene frowns) And you, the fair hero of France, on the son of your ally seek vengence, destroying, perchance, an innocent life -- here, when England and France have forgiven the sins of their fathers of yore, and baptized a new hope in their sons recent gore? Have you, the soldier humane, whose heart hid in glory, the pain of a youth disappointed, no pity for youth in another? That boy's pure, beautiful nature still cling[s] to life, for the sake of life's uses, until he was stricken down by the news that the heart o9f Constance, like his own was breaking beneath --
GENERAL. (rising) Hold! forbear! 'Tis to him then, that I owe these late greetings - for him you are here -- for his sake you seek me -- for him it is clear you has designed at the last to be -- think again of this long forgotten existence!
SOEUR S.. Eugene!
GENERAL. Ha. fool that I was! and just now while you spoke, my heart was beginning to grow almost boyish again, almost, almost sure of one friend. Yet this was the meaning of all -- this the end. Be it so! There's a sort of slow justice (admit) in this -— that the word that man's finger hath writ in fire on my heart, I return him at last. Let him learn that word -— Never! (crosses R.)
SOEUR S.. (rises) Eugene! Eugene! I plead for Constance!
GENERAL. (averting his heart [sic; "head"?]) Constance! Ay, she enterrd my lone life when its sun was long set. I have but that light in the midst of much darkness. Who names me but she with titles of love? and what rests there for me in the silence of age save the voice of that child?
SOEUR S.. Are you able to lay your hand as a knight on your heart as a man, and swear that, whatever may happen, you can feel assured for the life you thus cherish?
GENERAL. How so? (turning sharply)
SOEUR S.. If the boy should die thus?
GENERAL. Yes, I know what your look would imply. This sleek stranger forsooth! Because on his cheek was the red rose of youth, the heart of my niece must break for it!
SOEUR S.. (lays hand on his shoulder) Nay, but hear me yet further!
GENERAL. (shakes hand off his shoulder) Understand, if Constance wed the son of this man by whose hand my heart hath been robbed, she is lost to my life.
SOEUR S.. O, think not of the son of the man whom unjustly you hate. Only think of this young human creature that cries from the brink of a grave to your mercy. Think! you have but to stretch forth a hand, to speak only one word and you rescue a life!.
GENERAL. (brushing past her. L.) No! Constance a Vargrave! I can-not accept.
SOEUR S.. (crosses her hands on breast) Eugene de Luvois, but for you, I might have been now not this wandering nun -- but a wife, a mother, -- pleading for the son of another, but blessing some child of my own. His -- the man's that I once loved! Hush! that which is done I regret not. 'Twas God's will, it is mine. This only I say: You have not the right to say I am the wronged. Have I wronged thee? wronged thee?
GENERAL. (falteringly) Lucile, ah, Lucile!
SOEUR S.. Nay, not me but man! The lone nun standing here has no claim upon earth and is passed from the sphere of earth's wrongs and earth's reparations. But she, the dead woman, Lucile, whose grave is in me, demands from her grave reparation to man, reparation to God! Heed, O heed, while you can this voice from the grave!
GENERAL. I obey the Soeur Seraphine. There, Lucile, let this pay every debt that is due to that grave. (crosses R.) A Vargrave! this pays all! (Soeur Seraphine steps toward him, he turns) O, Soeur Seraphine are you happy?
SOEUR S.. Eugene, what is happier than to have not in vain? You do not repent?
GENERAL. No!
SOEUR S.. Thank Heaven. Nunc dimittis! ("Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation. Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people. To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel." (goes to door of tent)). The helmsman, Eugene, needs the compass to steer by. Pray always. Again we two part: each to work out Heaven's will: you, I trust, in the world's ample witness; and I, as I must, in secret and silence: you, love, fame, await; me, sorrow and sickness. Side by side may we stand at the same little door when all's done! The ways they are many, the end it is one. He that knocketh shall enter: who asks shall obtain: and who seeketh, he findeth. Remember, Eugene! (She turns to depart.)
GENERAL. Wither? Whither?
SOEUR S.. (stretches forth her hand toward the French camp-fires now kindling) See yonder vast host, with its manifold heart made as one man's by one hope. The hope 'tis your part to aid towards achievement, to save from reverse. Mine, through suffering to sooth[sic], and through sickness to nurse. I go to my work: you to yours. (A low roll of musketry breaks)
CURTAIN
End of play.
Nearly the whole of the spoken text of this play is a transcription of Meredith's lines, modified slightly, when necessary, so Fulton can make transitions that elide short passages, or in some cases, whole, sometimes several, verses. Fulton's scene order also does not follow Meredith, with some scenes brought forward and others moved back in order to meet the marrative arc that interests Fulton. This concentrates the tension between Alfred Vargrave and the Duc Eugene de Luvois, rising from Lucile's and Alfred's intense attraction to each other and Eugene's fixed, somewhat perverse, desire for the unatainable (to him) Lucile. As a consequence many - many! -- of the issues the poem explores are entirely ignored.
Fulton also seems to have modified midstream some of the scene changes -- for reasons that are not always clear. Two of these are marked by her inserting a new break on a small fragment of paper followed by the continued text on a previously typed sheet. One of these occurs after page 13 (936-15), the other after page 24 (935.25). In each case the new scene break was indicated on a fragment of about six lines, and this fragment was placed ahead of a full sheet which continues the dialog. The typescript paper seems also to have been quite thim, resulting in considerable show-through of page below the one being imaged.
The typescript appears to have been bound by two small brads driven through the top margin, so the photographer, flipping page over between images, first shot the fragment and lower part of the following page in one shot, then realized that for the text to read correctly the fragment had to be imaged first and the whole sheet separately. This leads to numbering as follows:
Collation of typescript:
title page: not numbered in type; hand numbered 936-1 lower right corner
cast page: not numbered - 936-2
Act I, pages numbered 1 - 936-3
2 - 936-4
3 - 936-5
4 - 936-6
5 - 936-7
6 - 936-8
End Scene I. 7 - 936-9
Scene II. 8 - 936-10; show-through matches 936-11
9 - 936-11; show-through matches 936-12
10 - 936-12; show-through matches 936-13
End Act I. 11 - 936-13; show-through matches 936-14
Act II Scene I. 12 - 936-14; show-through matches 936-15
13 - 936-15; lower show-through matches 936-15; top?
scene 2 (fragment) 14 - numbered "14" six lines down
15 - 936-16
16 - 936-17
Fragment hand number 14", matches top six lines page 13; not numbered
repeat 15 - 936-16 no show-through
repeat 16 - 936-17 faint show-through
End Act II 17 - 936-18
Act II Scene II 18 - 936-19 show-through
19 - 936-20 show-through
End Act II 20 - 936-21 show-through
Act III, Scene I 21 - 936-22 faint show-through
22 - 936-23
23 - 936-24
24 - 936-25
fragment top number 25 - not numbered
bottom page 26 - 936-26 show-through has "27" at bottom
Act III, Scene II 24 - 936-25 no show-through
fragment numbered "25" not numbered, no show-through
26 - 936-26
27 - 639-27
28 - 639-28
29 - 639-29
End Act III. 30 - 639-30
Act IV. Scene I. 31 - 639-31 show-through
32 - 639-32 show-through
End Scene I. 33 - 639-33 show-through
Act IV. 34 - 639-34
35 - 639-35
End Act IV. 36 - 936-36
Act V. Scene I. 37 - 936-37
38 - 936-38
39 - 936-39
40 - 936-40
41 - 936-41
42 - 936-42
End of play 43 - 936-43
Thougn not consistent with Fulton's markings, the clearly identiable scenes in the poem are:
Part I, Canto I, verses I-V; p1-7; Scene I.1 Alfred/John discuss Lucile's letter to Alfred.
Canto III, Verses IV-XVI; p8-11; Scene I.2 Alfred visits Lucile; Duke interrupts: Verse XVII-XIX; Verses XX-XXIII; Lucile tells Duke to wait for her reponse "tomorrow".
Canto IV, Verses VII-XXIII; p12-13 Scene II.1 Alfred meets Lucile in Mountains; tells Alfred to wait for her response "tomorrow".
Canto V, Verse IX; p14-17; Lucile's letter to Alfred delivered. Verse XII: the Duke appears, wishing to pick a fight; Verse XXI: Lucile's letter to Duke is delivered. Scene II.2 Alfred and Duke compare letters; Lucile invites Duke to meet her at an Inn.
Canto VI, Verse IV-X: p18-20 II.3, Duke meets Lucile at an Inn.
Part II, Cannto I,Verses XVIII-XVI, p21-22, Scene III.1 Lucile in Ems, goes off in conversation with Alfred; Duke hits on Matilda Verses XX-XXVII.
Verses XXVIII; p23-24; Scene III.2: Verses XXIX-XXXV: Lucile, Duke and Alfred converse
Canto II Verse III p25-26; Scene III.3 Alfred and Duke confront each other; Verses p26-28; Scene III.3; Verses III-IX p29-30; Scene III.4, Lucile corrects Alfred about Matilda's feelings needs and feeling, Verses XI-XIV then Matilda about the Duke's intent.
Canto IV, Verses V-VII; p31-32; Scene IV.1 Alfred/John discuss financial loss from McNab's bankruptcy.
Verses VIII-XV; p32-33; Scene IV.2 Alfred informs Matilda about their lost fortune.
Canto V, Verses IV-XIIII; p34-36; Scene IV.3 Lucile and Duke talk; Lucile will become a nun.
Canto VI, Verses XI-XIX; p37-38; Scene V.1 Lucile with Arthur Vargrave in medical Tent.
Verses XXI; p39; Scene V.2 Duke and his Colonel aide discuss Soeur Seraphine.
Verses XXII-XXXVII (with long passage involving Arthur omitted); p40-43; Scene V.3 Soeur Seraphine appears before Duke; wins agreement in regard to Constance's and Arthur's marriage; both exit to their duties.
Last revised: 21 November 2021