Lucile Part 11

Indifferently turning his glance, Alfred Vargrave encounter'd that gaze unaware.

O'er a bodice snow-white stream'd her soft dusky hair: A rose-bud half blown in her hand; in her eyes A half-pensive smile.

A sharp cry of surprise Escaped from his lips: some unknown agitation.

An invincible trouble, a strange palpitation, Confused his ingenious and frivolous wit; Overtook, and entangled, and paralyzed it.

That wit so complacent and docile, that ever Lightly came at the call of the lightest endeavor, Ready coin'd, and availably current as gold, Which, secure of its value, so fluently roll'd In free circulation from hand on to hand For the usage of all, at a moment's command; For once it rebell'd, it was mute and unstirr'd, And he looked at Lucile without speaking a word.

VIII.

Perhaps what so troubled him was, that the face On whose features he gazed had no more than a trace Of the face his remembrance had imaged for years.

Yes! the face he remember'd was faded with tears: Grief had famish'd the figure, and dimmed the dark eyes, And starved the pale lips, too acquainted with sighs, And that tender, and gracious, and fond coquetterie Of a woman who knows her least ribbon to be Something dear to the lips that so warmly caress Every sacred detail of her exquisite dress, In the careless toilet of Lucile--then too sad To care aught to her changeable beauty to add-- Lord Alfred had never admired before!

Alas! poor Lucile, in those weak days of yore, Had neglected herself, never heeding, or thinking (While the blossom and bloom of her beauty were shrinking) That sorrow can beautify only the heart-- Not the face--of a woman; and can but impart Its endearment to one that has suffer'd. In truth Grief hath beauty for grief; but gay youth loves gay youth.

IX.

The woman that now met, unshrinking his gaze, Seem'd to bask in the silent but sumptuous haze Of that soft second summer, more ripe than the first, Which returns when the bud to the blossom hath burst In despite of the stormiest April. Lucile Had acquired that matchless unconscious appeal To the homage which none but a churl would withhold-- That caressing and exquisite grace--never bold, Ever present--which just a few women possess.

From a healthful repose, undisturb'd by the stress Of unquiet emotions, her soft cheek had drawn A freshness as pure as the twilight of dawn.

Her figure, though slight, had revived everywhere The luxurious proportions of youth; and her hair-- Once shorn as an offering to pa.s.sionate love-- Now floated or rested redundant above Her airy pure forehead and throat; gather'd loose Under which, by one violet knot, the profuse Milk-white folds of a cool modest garment reposed, Rippled faint by the breast they half hid, half disclosed, And her simple attire thus in all things reveal'd The fine art which so artfully all things conceal'd.

X.

Lord Alfred, who never conceived that Lucile Could have look'd so enchanting, felt tempted to kneel At her feet, and her pardon with pa.s.sion implore; But the calm smile that met him sufficed to restore The pride and the bitterness needed to meet The occasion with dignity due and discreet.

XI.

"Madam,"--thus he began with a voice rea.s.sured,-- "You see that your latest command has secured My immediate obedience--presuming I may Consider my freedom restored from this day."-- "I had thought," said Lucile, with a smile gay yet sad, "That your freedom from me not a fetter has had.

Indeed!... in my chains have you rested till now?

I had not so flattered myself, I avow!"

"For Heaven's sake, Madam," Lord Alfred replied, "Do not jest! has the moment no sadness?" he sigh'd.

"'Tis an ancient tradition," she answer'd, "a tale Often told--a position too sure to prevail In the end of all legends of love. If we wrote, When we first love, foreseeing that hour yet remote, Wherein of necessity each would recall From the other the poor foolish records of all Those emotions, whose pain, when recorded, seem'd bliss, Should we write as we wrote? But one thinks not of this!

At Twenty (who does not at Twenty?) we write Believing eternal the frail vows we plight; And we smile with a confident pity, above The vulgar results of all poor human love: For we deem, with that vanity common to youth, Because what we feel in our bosoms, in truth, Is novel to us--that 'tis novel to earth, And will prove the exception, in durance and worth, To the great law to which all on earth must incline.

The error was n.o.ble, 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?"

XII.

Lord Alfred was mute. He remember'd her yet A child--the weak sport of each moment's regret, Blindly yielding herself to the errors of life, The deceptions of youth, and borne down by the strife And the tumult of pa.s.sion; the tremulous toy Of each transient emotion of grief or of joy.

But to watch her p.r.o.nounce the death-warrant of all The illusions of life--lift, unflinching, the pall From the bier of the dead Past--that woman so fair, And so young, yet her own self-survivor; who there Traced her life's epitaph with a finger so cold!

'Twas a picture that pain'd his self-love to behold.

He himself knew--none better--the things to be said Upon subjects like this. Yet he bow'd down his head: And as thus, with a trouble he could not command, He paused, crumpling the letters he held in his hand, "You know me enough," she continued, "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 have rested Unreclaim'd in your hands." A reproach seem'd suggested By these words. To meet it, Lord Alfred look'd up (His gaze had been fix'd on a blue Sevres cup With a look of profound connoisseurs.h.i.+p--a smile Of singular interest and care, all this while.) He look'd up, and look'd long in the face of Lucile, To mark if that face by a sign would reveal At the thought of Miss Darcy the least jealous pain.

He look'd keenly and long, yet he look'd there in vain.

"You are generous, Madam," he murmur'd at last, And into his voice a light irony pa.s.s'd.

He had look'd for reproaches, and fully arranged His forces. But straightway the enemy changed The position.

XIII.

"Come!" gayly Lucile interposed, With a smile whose divinely deep sweetness disclosed Some depth in her nature he never had known, While she tenderly laid her light hand on his own, "Do not think I abuse the occasion. We gain Justice, judgment, with years, or else years are in vain.

From me not a single reproach can you hear.

I have sinn'd to myself--to the world--nay, I fear To you chiefly. 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 rather than seek to allure, for her sake, His life down the turbulent, fanciful wake Of impossible destinies, use all her art That his place in the world find its place in her heart.

I, alas!--I perceived not this truth till too late; I tormented your youth, I have darken'd your fate.

Forgive me the ill I have done for the sake Of its long expiation!"

XIV.

Lord Alfred, awake, Seem'd to wander from dream on to dream. In that seat Where he sat as a criminal, ready to meet His accuser, he found himself turn'd by some change, As surprising and all unexpected as strange, To the judge from whose mercy indulgence was sought.

All the world's foolish pride in that moment was naught; He felt all his plausible theories posed; And, thrill'd by the beauty of nature disclosed In the pathos of all he had witness'd, his head He bow'd, and faint words self-reproachfully said, As he lifted her hand to his lips. 'Twas a hand White, delicate, dimpled, warm, languid, and bland.

The hand of a woman is often, in youth, Somewhat rough, somewhat red, somewhat graceless, in truth; Does its beauty refine, as its pulses grow calm, Or as Sorrow has cross'd the life-line in the palm?

XV.

The more that he look'd, that he listen'd, the more He discover'd perfections unnoticed before.

Less salient than once, less poetic, perchance, This woman who thus had survived the romance That had made him its hero, and breathed him its sighs, Seem'd more charming a thousand times o'er to his eyes.

Together they talk'd of the years since when last They parted, contrasting the present, the past.

Yet no memory marr'd their light converse. Lucile Question'd much, with the interest a sister might feel, Of Lord Alfred's new life,--of Miss Darcy--her face, Her temper, accomplishments--pausing to trace The advantage derived from a hymen so fit.

Of herself, she recounted with humor and wit Her journeys, her daily employments, the lands She had seen, and the books she had read, and the hands She had shaken.

In all that she said there appear'd An amiable irony. Laughing, she rear'd The temple of reason, with ever a touch Of light scorn at her work, reveal'd only so much As their gleams, in the thyrsus that Baccha.n.a.ls bear, Through the blooms of a garland the point of a spear.

But above, and beneath, and beyond all of this, To that soul, whose experience had paralyzed bliss, A benignant indulgence, to all things resign'd, A justice, a sweetness, a meekness of mind, Gave a luminous beauty, as tender and faint And serene as the halo encircling a saint.

XVI.

Un.o.bserved by Lord Alfred the time fleeted by.

To each novel sensation spontaneously He abandon'd himself with that ardor so strange Which belongs to a mind grown accustom'd to change.

He sought, with well-practised and delicate art, To surprise from Lucile the true state of her heart; But his efforts were vain, and the woman, as ever, More adroit than the man, baffled every endeavor.

When he deem'd he had touch'd on some chord in her being, At the touch it dissolved, and was gone. Ever fleeing As ever he near it advanced, when he thought To have seized, and proceeded to a.n.a.lyze aught Of the moral existence, the absolute soul, Light as vapor the phantom escaped his control.

XVII.

From the hall, on a sudden, a sharp ring was heard.

In the pa.s.sage without a quick footstep there stirr'd; At the door knock'd the negress, and thrust in her head, "The Duke de Luvois had just enter'd," she said, "And insisted"-- "The Duke!" cried Lucile (as she spoke, The Duke's step, approaching, a light echo woke).

"Say I do not receive till the evening. Explain,"