The Inn Album/V

V

It is the young man shatters silence first. "Well, my lord—for indeed my lord you are, I little guessed how rightly—this last proof Of lordship-paramount confounds too much My simple head-piece! Let's see how we stand Each to the other! how we stood i' the game Of life an hour ago,—the magpies, stile And oak-tree witnessed. Truth exchanged for truth— My lord confessed his four-years-old affair— How he seduced and then forsook the girl Who married somebody and left him sad. My pitiful experience was—I loved A girl whose gown's hem had I dared to touch My finger would have failed me, palsy-fixed; She left me, sad enough, to marry—whom? A better man,—then possibly not you! How does the game stand? Who is who and what Is what, o' the board now, since an hour went by? My lord's  'seduced, forsaken, sacrificed'— Starts up, my lord's familiar instrument, Associate and accomplice, mistress-slave— Shares his adventure, follows on the sly, —Ay, and since  'bag and baggage'  is a phrase— Baggage lay hid in carpet-bag belike, Was but unpadlocked when occasion came For holding council, since my back was turned, On how invent ten thousand pounds which, paid, Would lure the winner to lose twenty more, Beside refunding these! Why else allow The fool to gain them? So displays herself The lady whom my heart believed—oh, laugh! Noble and pure: whom my heart loved at once, And who at once did speak truth when she said  'I am not mine now but another's'—thus Being that other's! Devil's-marriage, eh?  'My lie weds thine till lucre us do part?'  But pity me the snobbish simpleton, You two aristocratic tip-top swells At swindling! Quits, I cry! Decamp content With skin I'm peeled of: do not strip bones bare— As that you could, I have no doubt at all! O you two rare ones! Male and female, Sir! The male there smirked, this morning, 'Come, my boy— Out with it! You've been crossed in love, I think: I recognize the lover's hangdog look; Make a clean breast and match my confidence, For, I'll be frank, I too have had my fling, Am punished for my fault, and smart enough! Where now the victim hides her head, God knows!' Here loomed her head, life-large, the devil knew! Look out, Salvini! Here's your man, your match! He and I sat applauding, stall by stall, Last Monday—'Here's Othello'  was our word,  'But where's Iago?'  Where? Why, there! And now The fellow-artist, female specimen— Oh, lady, you must needs describe yourself! He's grea in art, but you—how greater still —(If I can rightly, out of all I learned, Apply one bit of Latin that assures  'Art means just art's concealment' )—tower yourself! For he stands plainly visible henceforth— Liar and scamp: while you, in artistry Prove so consummate—or I prove perhaps So absolute an ass—that—either way— You still do seem to me who worshipped you And see you take the homage of this man Your master, who played slave and knelt, no doubt, Before a mistress in his very craft. . . Well, take the fact, I nor believe my eyes, Nor trust my understanding! Still you seem Noble and pure as when we had the talk Under the tower, beneath the trees, that day. And there's the key explains the secret: down He knelt to ask your leave to rise a grade I' the mystery of humbug: well he may! For how you beat him! Half an hour ago, I held your master for my best of friends; And now I hate him! Four years since, you seemed My heart's one love: well, and you so remain! What's he to you in craft?"

She looks him through.

"My friend, 'tis just that friendship have its turn— Interrogate thus me whom one, of foes The worst, has questioned and is answered by. Take you as frank an answer! answers both Begin alike so far, divergent soon World-wide—I own superiority Over you, over him. As him I searched, So do you stand seen through and through by me Who, this time, proud, report your crystal shrines A dewdrop, plain as amber prisons round A spider in the hollow heart his house! Nowise are you that thing my fancy feared When out you stepped on me, a minute since, —This man's confederate! no, you step not thus Obsequiously at beck and call to help At need some second scheme, and supplement Guile by force, use my shame to pinion me From struggle and escape! I fancied that! Forgive me! Only by strange chance,—most strange In even this strange world,—you enter now, Obtain your knowledge. Me you have not wronged Who never wronged you—least of all, my friend, That day beneath the College tower and trees, When I refused to say,—'not friend but, love!'  Had I been found as free as air when first We met, I scarcely could have loved you. No— For where was that in you which claimed return Of love? My eyes were all too weak to probe This other's seeming, but that seeming loved The soul in me, and lied—I know too late! While your truth was truth: and I knew at once My power was just my beauty—bear the word— As I must bear, of all my qualities, To name the poorest one that serves my soul And simulates myself! So much in me You loved, I know: the something that's beneath Heard not your call,—uncalled, no answer comes! For, since in every love, or soon or late Soul must awake and seek out soul for soul, Yours, overlooking mine then, would, some day, Take flight to find some other; so it proved— Missing me, you were ready for this man. I apprehend the whole relation: his— The soul wherein you saw your type of worth At once, true object of your tribute. Well Might I refuse such half-heart's homage! Love Divining, had assured you I no more Stand his participant in infamy Than you—I need no love to recognize As simply dupe and nowise fellow-cheat! Therefore accept one last friend's-word,—your friend's, All men's friend, save a felon's, Ravel out The bad embroilment howsoe'er you may, Distribute as it please you praise or blame To me—so you but fling this mockery far— Renounce this rag-and-feather hero-sham, This poodle clipt to pattern, lion-like! Throw him his thousands back, and lay to heart The lesson I was sent,—if man discerned Ever God's message,—just to teach. I judge— Far to another issue than could dream Your cousin,—younger, fairer, as befits— Who summoned me to judgment's exercise. I find you, save in folly, innocent. And in my verdict lies your fate; at choice Of mine your cousin takes or leaves you.  'Take!'  I bid her—for you tremble back to truth! She turns the scale,—one touch of the pure hand Shall so press down, emprison past relapse Farther vibration 'twixt veracity— That's honest solid earth—and falsehood, theft And air, that's one illusive emptiness! That reptile capture you? I conquered him: You saw him cower before me! Have no fear He shall offend you farther! Spare to spurn— Safe let him slink hence till some subtler Eve Than I, anticipate the snake—bruise head Ere he bruise heel—or, warier than the first, Some Adam purge earth's garden of its pest Before the slaver spoil the Tree of Life!

"You! Leave this youth, as he leaves you, as I Leave each! There's caution surely extant yet Though conscience in you were too vain a claim. Hence quickly! Keep the cash but leave unsoiled The heart I rescue and would lay to heal Beside another's! Never let her know How near came taint of your companionship!"

"Ah"—draws a long breath with a new strange look The man she interpellates—soul a-stir Under its covert, as, beneath the dust, A coppery sparkle all at once denotes The hid snake has conceived a purpose.

"Ah— Innocence should be crowned with ignorance? Desirable indeed, but difficult! As if yourself, now, had not glorified Your helpmate by imparting him a hint Of how a monster made the victim bleed Ere crook and courage saved her—hint, I say,— Not the whole horror,—that were needless risk,— But just such inkling, fancy of the fact, As should suffice to qualify henceforth The shepherd, when another lamb would stray, For warning  'Ware the wolf!'  No doubt at all, Silence is generosity,—keeps wolf Unhunted by flock's warder! Excellent, Did—generous to me, mean—just to him! But, screening the deceiver, lamb were found Outraging the deceitless! So,—he knows! And yet, unharmed I breathe—perchance, repent— Thanks to the mercifully-politic!"

"Ignorance is not innocence but sin— Witness your own ignoring after-pangs Pursue the plague-infected. Merciful Am I? Perhaps! the more contempt, the less Hatred; and who so worthy of contempt As you that rest assured I cooled the spot I could not cure, by poisoning, forsooth, Whose hand I pressed there? Understand for once That, sick, of all the pains corroding me This burnt the last and nowise least—the need Of simulating soundness. I resolved— No matter how the struggle tasked weak flesh— To hide the truth away as in a grave From—most of all—my husband: he nor knows Nor ever shall be made to know your part, My part, the devil's part,—I trust, God's part In the foul matter. Saved, I yearn to save And not destroy: and what destruction like The abolishing of faith in him, that's faith In me as pure and true? Acquaint some child Who takes yon tree into his confidence, That, where he sleeps now, was a murder done, And that the grass which grows so thick, he thinks, Only to pillow him is product just Of what lies festering beneath! 'Tis God Must bear such secrets and disclose them. Man? The miserable thing I have become By dread acquaintance with my secret—you— That thing had he become by learning me— The miserable, whom his ignorance Would wrongly call the wicked: ignorance Being, I hold, sin ever, small or great. No, he knows nothing!"

"He and I alike Are bound to you for such discreetness, then. What if our talk should terminate awhile? Here is a gentleman to satisfy, Settle accounts with, pay ten thousand pounds Before we part—as, by his face, I fear, Results from your appearance on the scene. Grant me a minute's parley with my friend Which scarce admits of a third personage! The room from which you made your entry first So opportunely—still untenanted— What if you please return there? Just a word To my young friend first—then, a word to you, And you depart to fan away each fly From who, grass-pillowed, sleeps so sound at home!"

"So the old truth comes back! A wholesome change,— At last the altered eye, the rightful tone! But even to the truth that drops disguise And stands forth grinning malice which but now Whined so contritely—I refuse assent Just as to malice. I, once gone, come back? No, my lord! I enjoy the privilege Of being absolutely loosed from you Too much—the knowledge that your power is null Which was omnipotent. A word of mouth, A wink of eye would have detained me once, Body and soul your slave; and now, thank God, Your fawningest of prayers, your frightfulest Of curses—neither would avail to turn My footstep for a moment!"

"Prayer, then, tries No such adventure. Let us cast about For something novel in expedient: take Command,—what say you? I profess myself One fertile in resource. Commanding, then, I bid—not only wait there, but return Here, where I want you! Disobey and—good! On your own head the peril!"

"Come!" breaks in The boy with his good glowing face. "Shut up! None of this sort of thing while I stand here —Not to stand that! No bullying, I beg! I also am to leave you presently And never more set eyes upon your face— You won't mind that much; but—I tell you frank— I do mind having to remember this For your last word and deed—my friend who were! Bully a woman you have ruined, eh? Do you know,—I give credit all at once To all those stories everybody told And nobody but I would disbelieve: They all seem likely now,—nay, certain, sure! I daresay you did cheat at cards that night The row was at the Club:  'sauter la coupe'— That was your 'cut,' for which your friends 'cut' you; While I, the booby, 'cut'—acquaintanceship With who so much as laughed when I said  'luck!'  I daresay you had bets against the horse They doctored at the Derby; little doubt, That fellow with the sister found you shirk His challenge and did kick you like a ball, Just as the story went about! Enough: It only serves to show how well advised, Madam, you were in bidding such a fool As I, go hang. You see how the mere sight And sound of you suffice to tumble down Conviction topsy-turvy: no,—that's false,— There's no unknowing what one knows; and yet Such is my folly that, in gratitude For. . . well, I'm stupid; but you seemed to wish I should know gently what I know, should slip Softly from old to new, not break my neck Between beliefs of what you were and are. Well then, for just the sake of such a wish To cut no worse a figure than needs must In even eyes like mine, I'd sacrifice Body and soul! But don't think danger—pray!— Menaces either! He do harm to us? Let me say 'us' this one time! You'd allow I lent perhaps my hand to rid your ear Of some cur's yelping—hand that's fortified, Into the bargain, with a horsewhip? Oh, One crack and you shall see how curs decamp! My lord, you know your losses and my gains. Pay me my money at the proper time! If cash be not forthcoming,—well, yourself Have taught me, and tried often, I'll engage, The proper course: I post you at the Club, Pillory the defaulter. Crack, to-day, Shall, slash, to-morrow, slice through flesh and bone! There, Madam, you need mind no cur, I think!"

"Ah, what a gain to have an apt no less Than grateful scholar! Nay, he brings to mind My knowledge till he puts me to the blush, So long has it lain rusty! Post my name! That were indeed a wheal from whipcord! Whew! I wonder now if I could rummage out —Just to match weapons—some old scorpion-scourge! Madam, you hear my pupil, may applaud His triumph o'er the master. I—no more Bully, since I'm forbidden: but entreat— Wait and return—for my sake, no! but just To save your own defender, should he chance Get thwacked thro' awkward flourish of his thong. And what if—since all waiting's weary work— I help the time pass 'twixt your exit now And entry then? for—pastime proper—here's The very thing, the Alburn, verse and prose To make the laughing minutes launch away! Each of us must contribute. I'll begin—  'Hail calm acclivity, salubrious spot!'  I'm confident I beat the bard,—for why? My young friend owns me an Iago—him Confessed, among the other qualities, A ready rhymer. Oh, he rhymed! Here goes! — Something to end with '' 'horsewhip'! '' No, that rhyme Beats me; there's  'cowslip,' 'boltsprit,'  nothing else! So, Tennyson take my benison,—verse for bard, Prose suits the gambler's book best! Dared and done!"

Wherewith he dips pen, writes a line or two, Closes and clasps the cover, gives the book, Bowing the while, to her who hesitates, Turns half away, turns round again, at last Takes it as you touch carrion, then retires. The door shuts fast the couple.