"Ah," said he with a nod of the head, "to gain and lose Blackladies in so short a space—it is a hard case, Mr. Clavering."
In the hurry and stress of these last two days I had given no thought to what the loss Blackladies meant, but the meaning rushed in upon me winged with his words.
"Ay," I answered, and my voice trembled as I spoke, so that the old man came over to me and laid a hand upon my shoulder, "for it is the King who loses it, and through my folly, for I might have known."
I felt his hand patting me with a helpless consolation. "So we all say, after the event. It is a hard thing to bear, but philosophy will help us. You must study philosophy while you are here, Mr. Clavering. I have books"—and he glanced round the room and then came to an abrupt pause—"I have books," he repeated in a lame fashion, "which you may find profit in studying;" and as he spoke, the music of a song quivered up from the next room like a bird on the wing. I understood that "we," which had much perplexed me in his talk; I remembered where and when I had heard of Applegarth before. You may talk, if you will, of Cuzzoni and Faustina and the rest of the Italian women who have filled Heidegger's pockets; doubtless they made more noise, but not one of them, I'll be sworn, had a tenth of the sweetness and purity of the voice which sang this song. Give to a lark a human soul and then maybe you will hear it. For it was more than a voice that sang; it was as though the wings of a soul beat and throbbed in the singer's throat. I lack words to describe the effect it wrought on me. All the shame I had been sensible of during the long hours since that pistol rang out in the garden of Blackladies, came back to me massed within the compass of a second, and on that shame, more and ever more. I know that I buried my face in my hands to hide the anguish of my spirit from Mr. Curwen; and sitting there with my fingers pressed upon my eyes I listened. The words came clearly to my ears through the doorway behind my chair; the voice carried my thoughts back to Paris, was the crystal wherein I saw pitilessly plain all the dreams I had fashioned of what I would do, had I but liberty and the power to do it; then carried me again to England, and showed me the miserable contrast between those airy dreams and the solid truth. I saw myself now riding to Lorraine; now lingering in Mr. Herbert's apartment. And the words of that song pointed my remorse—how bitterly! Even now, after this interval of thirty-five years, the humiliation and pain I endured return to me with so poignant a force that I can hardly bring myself to write of them. I could not indeed at all, but for this faded yellow sheet of paper which I take up in my hands. It was given to me upon an occasion notable within my memory, and the words of this very song are inscribed upon it, blurred and well-nigh indecipherable, but I do not need the writing to help me to remember them. The song was called "The Honest Lover," and I set it down here since here it was that I first heard it.
"THE HONEST LOVER."[[1]]
"Would any doubting maid discover
What's he that is a worthy lover:
His is no fine fantastic breath,
But lowly mien and steadfast faith.
For he that so would move her,
By simple art,
And humble heart,
Why, he's the honest lover.
"His is a heart that never played
The light-o'-love to wife or maid,
But reverenced all womankind
Before he found one to his mind.