Lucile

by Earl of Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton Lytton

V.

"What's the matter?" he cried.
"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.
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 warn'd 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 bewitch'd you to wait?
ALFRED.
Mercy save us! you don't mean to say...
JOHN.
Yes, I do.
ALFRED.
What! Sir Ridley?
JOHN.
Smash'd, broken, blown up, bolted too!
ALFRED.
But his own niece?... In Heaven's name, Jack...
JOHN.
Oh, I told you
The old hypocritical scoundrel would...
ALFRED.
Hold! you
Surely can't mean we are ruin'd?
JOHN.
Sit down!
A fortnight ago a report about town
Made me most apprehensive. Alas, and alas!
I at once wrote and warn'd you. Well, now let that pass.
A run on the Bank about five days ago
Confirm'd my forebodings too terribly, though.
I drove down to the city at once; found the door
Of the Bank close: the Bank had stopp'd payment at four.
Next morning the failure was known to be fraud:
Warrant out for McNab: but McNab was abroad:
Gone—we cannot tell where. I endeavor'd to get
Information: have learn'd nothing certain as yet—
Not even the way that old Ridley was gone:
Or with those securities what he had done:
Or whether they had been already call'd out:
If they are not, their fate is, I fear, past a doubt.
Twenty families ruin'd, they say: what was left,—
Unable to find any clew to the cleft
The old fox ran to earth in,—but join you as fast
As I could, my dear Alfred?*

*These events, it is needless to say, Mr. Morse,
Took place when Bad News as yet travell'd by horse;
Ere the world, like a cockchafer, buzz'd on a wire,
Or Time was calcined by electrical fire;
Ere a cable went under the hoary Atlantic,
Or the word Telegram drove grammarians frantic.

VI.

He stopp'd here, aghast
At the change in his cousin, the hue of whose face
Had grown livid; and glassy his eyes fix'd on space.
"Courage, courage!"... said John,... "bear the blow like a man!"
And he caught the cold hand of Lord Alfred. There ran
Through that hand a quick tremor. "I bear it," he said,
"But Matilda? the blow is to her!" And his head
Seem'd forced down, as he said it.
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 t.
ALFRED.
I might have averted.
JOHN.
Perhaps so. But now
There is clearly no use in considering how,
Or whence, came the mischief. The mischief is here.
Broken shins are not mended by crying—that's clear!
One has but to rub them, and get up again,
And push on—and not think too much of the pain.
And at least it is much that you see that to her
You owe too much to think of yourself. You must stir
And arouse yourself Alfred, for her sake. Who knows?
Something yet may be saved from this wreck. I suppose
We shall make him disgorge all he can, at the least.
"O Jack, I have been a brute idiot! a beast!
A fool! I have sinn'd, and to HER I have sinn'd!
I have been heedless, blind, inexcusably blind!
And now, in a flash, I see all things!"
As though
To shut out the vision, he bow'd his head low
On his hands; and the great tears in silence roll'd on
And fell momently, heavily, one after one.
John felt no desire to find instant relief
For the trouble he witness'd.
He guess'd, in the grief
Of his cousin, the broken and heartfelt admission
Of some error demanding a heartfelt contrition:
Some oblivion perchance which could plead less excuse
To the heart of a man re-aroused to the use
Of the conscience God gave him, than simply and merely
The neglect for which now he was paying so dearly.
So he rose without speaking, and paced up and down
The long room, much afflicted, indeed, in his own
Cordial heart for Matilda.
Thus, silently lost
In his anxious reflections, he cross'd and re-cross'd
The place where his cousin yet hopelessly hung
O'er the table; his fingers entwisted among
The rich curls they were knotting and dragging: and there,
That sound of all sounds the most painful to hear,
The sobs of a man! Yet so far in his own
Kindly thoughts was he plunged, he already had grown
Unconscious of Alfred.
And so for a space
There was silence between them.

VII.

At last, with sad face
He stopp'd short, and bent on his cousin awhile
A pain'd sort of wistful, compassionate smile,
Approach'd him,—stood o'er him,—and suddenly laid
One hand on his shoulder—
"Where is she?" he said.
Alfred lifted his face all disfigured with tears
And gazed vacantly at him, like one that appears
In some foreign language to hear himself greeted,
Unable to answer.
"Where is she?" repeated
His cousin.
He motioned his hand to the door;
"There, I think," he replied. Cousin John said no more,
And appear'd to relapse to his own cogitations,
Of which not a gesture vouchsafed indications.
So again there was silence.
A timepiece at last
Struck the twelve strokes of midnight.
Roused by them, he cast
A half-look to the dial; then quietly threw
His arm round the neck of his cousin, and drew
The hands down from his face.
"It is time she should know
What has happen'd," he said,... "let us go to her now."
Alfred started at once to his feet.
Drawn and wan
Though his face, he look'd more than his wont was—a man.
Strong for once, in his weakness. Uplifted, fill'd through
With a manly resolve.
If that axiom be true
Of the "Sum quia cogito," I must opine
That "id sum quod cogito;"—that which, in fine
A man thinks and feels, with his whole force of thought
And feeling, the man is himself.
He had fought
With himself, and rose up from his self-overthrow
The survivor of much which that strife had laid low
At his feet, as he rose at the name of his wife,
Lay in ruins the brilliant unrealized life
Which, though yet unfulfill'd, seem'd till then, in that name,
To be his, had he claim'd it. The man's dream of fame
And of power fell shatter'd before him; and only
There rested the heart of the woman, so lonely
In all save the love he could give her. The lord
Of that heart he arose. Blush not, Muse, to record
That his first thought, and last, at that moment was not
Of the power and fame that seem'd lost to his lot,
But the love that was left to it; not of the pelf
He had cared for, yet squander'd; and not of himself,
But of her; as he murmur'd,
"One moment, dear jack!
We have grown up from boyhood together. Our track
Has been through the same meadows in childhood: in youth
Through the same silent gateways, to manhood. In truth,
There is none that can know me as you do; and none
To whom I more wish to believe myself known.
Speak the truth; you are not wont to mince it, I know.
Nor I, shall I shirk it, or shrink from it now.
In despite of a wanton behavior, in spite
Of vanity, folly, and pride, Jack, which might
Have turn'd from me many a heart strong and true
As your own, I have never turn'd round and miss'd YOU
From my side in one hour of affliction or doubt
By my own blind and heedless self-will brought about.
Tell me truth. Do I owe this alone to the sake
Of those old recollections of boyhood that make
In your heart yet some clinging and crying appeal
From a judgment more harsh, which I cannot but feel
Might have sentenced our friendship to death long ago?
Or is it... (I would I could deem it were so!)
That, not all overlaid by a listless exterior,
Your heart has divined in me something superior
To that which I seem; from my innermost nature
Not wholly expell'd by the world's usurpature?
Some instinct of earnestness, truth, or desire
For truth? Some one spark of the soul's native fire
Moving under the ashes, and cinders, and dust
Which life hath heap'd o'er it? Some one fact to trust
And to hope in? Or by you alone am I deem'd
The mere frivolous fool I so often have seem'd
To my own self?"
JOHN.
No, Alfred! you will, I believe,
Be true, at the last, to what now makes you grieve
For having belied your true nature so long.
Necessity is a stern teacher. Be strong!
"Do you think," he resumed,... "what I feel while I speak
Is no more than a transient emotion, as weak
As these weak tears would seem to betoken it?"
JOHN.
No!
ALFRED.
Thank you, cousin! your hand then. And now I will go
Alone, Jack. Trust to me.

VIII.

JOHN.
I do. But 'tis late.
If she sleeps, you'll not wake her?
ALFRED.
No, no! it will wait
(Poor infant!) too surely, this mission of sorrow;
If she sleeps, I will not mar her dreams of tomorrow.
He open'd the door, and pass'd out.
Cousin John
Watch'd him wistful, and left him to seek her alone.

IX.