SEVENTH BOOK.
‘The woman’s motive? shall we daub ourselves With finding roots for nettles? ’tis soft clay And easily explored. She had the means, The monies, by the lady’s liberal grace, In trust for that Australian scheme and me, Which so, that she might clutch with both her hands, And chink to her naughty uses undisturbed, She served me (after all it was not strange; ’Twas only what my mother would have done) A motherly, unmerciful, good turn.
‘Well, after. There are nettles everywhere, But smooth green grasses are more common still; The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud; A miller’s wife at Clichy took me in And spent her pity on me,—made me calm And merely very reasonably sad. She found me a servant’s place in Paris where I tried to take the cast-off life again, And stood as quiet as a beaten ass Who, having fallen through overloads, stands up To let them charge him with another pack.
‘A few months, so. My mistress, young and light, Was easy with me, less for kindness than Because she led, herself, an easy time Betwixt her lover and her looking-glass, Scarce knowing which way she was praised the most. She felt so pretty and so pleased all day She could not take the trouble to be cross, But, sometimes, as I stooped to tie her shoe, Would tap me softly with her slender foot, Still restless with the last night’s dancing in’t, And say, ‘Fie, pale-face! are you English girls All grave and silent? mass-book still, and Lent? And first-communion colours on your cheeks, Worn past the time for’t? little fool, be gay!’ At which she vanished, like a fairy, through A gap of silver laughter. ‘Came an hour When all went otherwise. She did not speak, But clenched her brows, and clipped me with her eyes As if a viper with a pair of tongs, Too far for any touch, yet near enough To view the writhing creature,—then at last; ‘Stand still there, in the holy Virgin’s name, Thou Marian; thou’rt no reputable girl, Although sufficient dull for twenty saints! I think thou mock’st me and my house,’ she said; ‘Confess, thou’lt be a mother in a month, Thou mask of saintship.’ ‘Could I answer her? The light broke in so: it meant that then, that? I had not thought of that, in all my thoughts,— Through all the cold, numb aching of my brow, Through all the heaving of impatient life Which threw me on death at intervals,—through all The upbreak of the fountains of my heart The rains had swelled too large: it could mean that? Did God make mothers out of victims, then, And set such pure amens to hideous deeds? Why not? He overblows an ugly grave With violets which blossom in the spring. And I could be a mother in a month! I hope it was not wicked to be glad. I lifted up my voice and wept, and laughed, To heaven, not her, until it tore my throat. ‘Confess, confess!’ what was there to confess, Except man’s cruelty, except my wrong? Except this anguish, or this ecstasy? This shame, or glory? The light woman there Was small to take it in: an acorn-cup Would take the sea in sooner. ‘Good,’ she cried; Unmarried and a mother, and she laughs! These unchaste girls are always impudent. Get out, intriguer! leave my house, and trot: I wonder you should look me in the face, With such a filthy secret.’ ‘Then I rolled My scanty bundle up, and went my way, Washed white with weeping, shuddering head and foot With blind hysteric passion, staggering forth Beyond those doors. ’Twas natural, of course, She should not ask me where I meant to sleep; I might sleep well beneath the heavy Seine, Like others of my sort; the bed was laid For us. But any woman, womanly, Had thought of him who should be in a month, The sinless babe that should be in a month, And if by chance he might be warmer housed Than underneath such dreary, dripping eaves.’
I broke on Marian there. ‘Yet she herself, A wife, I think, had scandals of her own, A lover, not her husband.’ ‘Ay,’ she said, ‘But gold and meal are measured otherwise; I learnt so much at school,’ said Marian Erle.
‘O crooked world,’ I cried, ‘ridiculous If not so lamentable! It’s the way With these light women of a thrifty vice, My Marian,—always hard upon the rent In any sister’s virtue! while they keep Their chastity so darned with perfidy, That, though a rag itself, it looks as well Across a street, in balcony or coach, As any stronger stuff might. For my part, I’d rather take the wind-side of the stews Than touch such women with my finger-end! They top the poor street-walker by their lie, And look the better for being so much worse: The devil’s most devilish when respectable. But you, dear, and your story.’ ‘All the rest Is here,’ she said, and signed upon the child. ‘I found a mistress-sempstress who was kind And let me sew in peace among her girls; And what was better than to draw the threads All day and half the night, for him, and him? And so I lived for him, and so he lives, And so I know, by this time, God lives too.’
She smiled beyond the sun, and ended so, And all my soul rose up to take her part Against the world’s successes, virtues, fames. ‘Come with me, sweetest sister,’ I returned, ‘And sit within my house, and do me good From henceforth, thou and thine! ye are my own From henceforth. I am lonely in the world, And thou art lonely, and the child is half An orphan. Come,—and, henceforth, thou and I Being still together, will not miss a friend, Nor he a father, since two mothers shall Make that up to him. I am journeying south, And, in my Tuscan home I’ll find a niche, And set thee there, my saint, the child and thee, And burn the lights of love before thy face, And ever at thy sweet look cross myself From mixing with the world’s prosperities; That so, in gravity and holy calm, We two may live on toward the truer life.’
She looked me in the face and answered not, Nor signed she was unworthy, nor gave thanks, But took the sleeping child and held it out To meet my kiss, as if requiting me And trusting me at once. And thus, at once, I carried him and her to where I lived; She’s there now, in the little room, asleep, I hear the soft child-breathing through the door; And all three of us, at to-morrow’s break, Pass onward, homeward, to our Italy. Oh, Romney Leigh, I have your debts to pay, And I’ll be just and pay them. But yourself! To pay your debts is scarcely difficult; To buy your life is nearly impossible, Being sold away to Lamia. My head aches; I cannot see my road along this dark; Nor can I creep and grope, as fits the dark, For these foot-catching robes of womanhood: A man might walk a little ... but I!—He loves The Lamia-woman,—and I, write to him What stops his marriage, and destroys his peace,— Or what, perhaps, shall simply trouble him, Until she only need to touch his sleeve With just a finger’s tremulous white flame, Saying, ‘Ah,—Aurora Leigh! a pretty tale, A very pretty poet! I can guess The motive’—then, to catch his eyes in hers, And vow she does not wonder,—and they two To break in laughter, as the sea along A melancholy coast, and float up higher, In such a laugh, their fatal weeds of love! Ay, fatal, ay. And who shall answer me Fate has not hurried tides; and if to-night My letter would not be a night too late,— An arrow shot into a man that’s dead, To prove a vain intention? Would I show The new wife vile, to make the husband mad? No, Lamia! shut the shutters, bar the doors From every glimmer on thy serpent-skin! I will not let thy hideous secret out To agonise the man I love—I mean The friend I love ... as friends love. It is strange, To-day while Marian told her story, like To absorb most listeners, how I listened chief To a voice not hers, nor yet that enemy’s, Nor God’s in wrath, ... but one that mixed with mine Long years ago, among the garden-trees, And said to me, to me too, ‘Be my wife, Aurora!’ It is strange, with what a swell Of yearning passion, as snow of ghosts Might beat against the impervious doors of heaven, I thought, ‘Now, if I had been a woman, such As God made women, to save men by love,— By just my love I might have saved this man, And made a nobler poem for the world Than all I have failed in.’ But I failed besides In this; and now he’s lost! through me alone! And, by my only fault, his empty house Sucks in, at this same hour, a wind from hell To keep his hearth cold, make his casements creak For ever to the tune of plague and sin— O Romney, O my Romney, O my friend! My cousin and friend! my helper, when I would, My love, that might be! mine! Why, how one weeps When one’s too weary! Were a witness by, He’d say some folly ... that I loved the man, Who knows?... and make me laugh again for scorn. At strongest, women are as weak in flesh, As men, at weakest, vilest, are in soul: So, hard for women to keep pace with men! As well give up at once, sit down at once, And weep as I do. Tears, tears! why, we weep? ’Tis worth enquiry?—That we’ve shamed a life, Or lost a love, or missed a world, perhaps? By no means. Simply, that we’ve walked too far, Or talked too much, or felt the wind i’ the east,— And so we weep, as if both body and soul Broke up in water—this way. Poor mixed rags Forsooth we’re made of, like those other dolls That lean with pretty faces into fairs. It seems as if I had a man in me, Despising such a woman. Yet indeed, To see a wrong or suffering moves us all To undo it, though we should undo ourselves; Ay, all the more, that we undo ourselves; That’s womanly, past doubt, and not ill-moved. A natural movement, therefore, on my part, To fill the chair up of my cousin’s wife, And save him from a devil’s company! We’re all so,—made so—’tis our woman’s trade To suffer torment for another’s ease. The world’s male chivalry has perished out, But women are knights-errant to the last; And, if Cervantes had been greater still, He had made his Don a Donna. So it clears, And so we rain our skies blue. Put away This weakness. If, as I have just now said, A man’s within me,—let him act himself, Ignoring the poor conscious trouble of blood That’s called the woman merely. I will write Plain words to England,—if too late, too late,— If ill-accounted, then accounted ill; We’ll trust the heavens with something. ‘Dear Lord Howe, You’ll find a story on another leaf That’s Marian Erle’s,—what noble friend of yours She trusted once, through what flagitious means To what disastrous ends;—the story’s true. I found her wandering on the Paris quays, A babe upon her breast,—unnatural Unseasonable outcast on such snows Unthawed to this time. I will tax in this Your friendship, friend,—if that convicted She Be not his wife yet, to denounce the facts To himself,—but, otherwise, to let them pass On tip-toe like escaping murderers, And tell my cousin, merely—Marian lives, Is found, and finds her home with such a friend, Myself, Aurora. Which good news, ‘She’s found,’ Will help to make him merry in his love: I send it, tell him, for my marriage gift, As good as orange-water for the nerves, Or perfumed gloves for headaches,—though aware That he, except of love, is scarcely sick; I mean the new love this time, ... since last year. Such quick forgetting on the part of men! Is any shrewder trick upon the cards To enrich them? pray instruct me how it’s done. First, clubs,—and while you look at clubs, it’s spades; That’s prodigy. The lightning strikes a man, And when we think to find him dead and charred ... Why, there he is on a sudden, playing pipes Beneath the splintered elm-tree! Crime and shame And all their hoggery trample your smooth world, Nor leave more foot-marks than Apollo’s kine, Whose hoofs were muffled by the thieving god In tamarisk-leaves and myrtle. I’m so sad, So weary and sad to-night, I’m somewhat sour,— Forgive me. To be blue and shrew at once, Exceeds all toleration except yours; But yours, I know, is infinite. Farewell. To-morrow we take train for Italy. Speak gently of me to your gracious wife, As one, however far, shall yet be near In loving wishes to your house.’ I sign. And now I’ll loose my heart upon a page, This— ‘Lady Waldemar, I’m very glad I never liked you; which you knew so well, You spared me, in your turn, to like me much. Your liking surely had done worse for me Than has your loathing, though the last appears Sufficiently unscrupulous to hurt, And not afraid of judgment. Now, there’s space Between our faces,—I stand off, as if I judged a stranger’s portrait and pronounced Indifferently the type was good or bad: What matter to me that the lines are false, I ask you? Did I ever ink my lips By drawing your name through them as a friend’s, Or touch your hands as lovers do? thank God I never did: and, since you’re proved so vile, Ay, vile, I say,—we’ll show it presently,— I’m not obliged to nurse my friend in you, Or wash out my own blots, in counting yours, Or even excuse myself to honest souls Who seek to touch my lip or clasp my palm,— ‘Alas, but Lady Waldemar came first!’ ‘’Tis true, by this time, you may near me so That you’re my cousin’s wife. You’ve gambled deep As Lucifer, and won the morning-star In that case,—and the noble house of Leigh Must henceforth with its good roof shelter you: I cannot speak and burn you up between Those rafters, I who am born a Leigh,—nor speak And pierce your breast through Romney’s, I who live His friend and cousin!—so, you are safe. You two Must grow together like the tares and wheat Till God’s great fire.—But make the best of time.
‘And hide this letter! let it speak no more Than I shall, how you tricked poor Marian Erle, And set her own love digging her own grave Within her green hope’s pretty garden-ground; Ay, sent her forth with some one of your sort To a wicked house in France,—from which she fled With curses in her eyes and ears and throat, Her whole soul choked with curses,—mad, in short, And madly scouring up and down for weeks The foreign hedgeless country, lone and lost,— So innocent, male-fiends might slink within Remote hell-corners, seeing her so defiled!
‘But you,—you are a woman and more bold. To do you justice, you’d not shrink to face ... We’ll say, the unfledged life in the other room, Which, treading down God’s corn, you trod in sight Of all the dogs, in reach of all the guns,— Ay, Marian’s babe, her poor unfathered child, Her yearling babe!—you’d face him when he wakes And opens up his wonderful blue eyes: You’d meet them and not wink perhaps, nor fear God’s triumph in them and supreme revenge, So, righting His creation’s balance-scale (You pulled as low as Tophet) to the top Of most celestial innocence! For me Who am not as bold, I own those infant eyes Have set me praying. ‘While they look at heaven, No need of protestation in my words Against the place you’ve made them! let them look! They’ll do your business with the heavens, be sure: I spare you common curses. ‘Ponder this. If haply you’re the wife of Romney Leigh, (For which inheritance beyond your birth You sold that poisonous porridge called your soul) I charge you, be his faithful and true wife! Keep warm his hearth and clean his board, and, when He speaks, be quick with your obedience; Still grind your paltry wants and low desires To dust beneath his heel; though, even thus, The ground must hurt him,—it was writ of old, ‘Ye shall not yoke together ox and ass,’ The nobler and ignobler. Ay, but you Shall do your part as well as such ill things Can do aught good. You shall not vex him,—mark, You shall not vex him, ... jar him when he’s sad, Or cross him when he’s eager. Understand To trick him with apparent sympathies, Nor let him see thee in the face too near And unlearn thy sweet seeming. Pay the price Of lies, by being constrained to lie on still; ’Tis easy for thy sort: a million more Will scarcely damn thee deeper. ‘Doing which, You are very safe from Marian and myself: We’ll breathe as softly as the infant here, And stir no dangerous embers. Fail a point, And show our Romney wounded, ill-content, Tormented in his home, ... we open mouth, And such a noise will follow, the last trump’s Will scarcely seem more dreadful, even to you; You’ll have no pipers after: Romney will (I know him) push you forth as none of his, All other men declaring it well done; While women, even the worst, your like, will draw Their skirts back, not to brush you in the street; And so I warn you. I’m ... Aurora Leigh.’