Victorian Women Writers Project

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THE LADY OF LA GARAYE.

PART II.

• A FIRST walk after sickness: the sweet breeze
• That murmurs welcome in the bending trees,
• When the cold shadowy foe of life departs,
• And the warm blood flows freely through our hearts:
• The smell of roses,—sound of trickling streams,
• The elastic turf cross‐barred with golden gleams,
• That seems to lift, and meet our faltering tread;
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• The happy birds, loud singing overhead;
• The glorious range of distant shade and light,
• In blue perspective, rapturous to our sight,
• Weary of draperied curtains folding round,
• And the monotonous chamber’s narrow bound;
• With,—best of all,—the consciousness at length,
• In every nerve of sure returning strength:—

• Long the dream stayed to cheer that darkened room,
• That this should be the end of all that gloom!

• Long, as the vacant life trained idly by,
• She pressed her pillow with a restless sigh,—
• “To‐morrow, surely, I shall stronger feel!”
• To‐morrow! but the slow days onward steal,
• And find her still with feverish aching head,
• Still cramped with pain; still lingering in her bed;
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• Still sighing out the tedium of the time;
• Still listening to the clock’s recurring chime,
• As though the very hours that struck were foes,
• And might, but would not, grant complete respose.
• Until the skilled physician,—sadly bold
• From frequent questioning,—her sentence told!
• That no good end could come to her faint yearning,—
• That no bright hour should see her health returning,—
• That changeful seasons,—not for one dark year,
• But on through life,—must teach her how to bear:
• For through all Springs, with rainbow‐tinted showers,
• And through all Summers, with their wealth of flowers,
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• And every Autumn, with its harvest‐home,
• And all white Winters of the time to come,—
• Crooked and sick for ever she must be:
• Her life of wild activity and glee
• Was with the past, the future was a life
• Dismal and feeble; full of suffering; rife
• With chill denials of accustomed joy,
• Continual torment, and obscure annoy.
• Blighted in all her bloom,—her withered frame
• Must now inherit age; young but in name.
• Never could she, at close of some long day
• Of pain that strove with hope, exulting lay
• A tiny new‐born infant on her breast,
• And, in the soft lamp’s glimmer, sink to rest,
• The strange corporeal weakness sweetly blent
• With a delicious dream of full content;
• With pride of motherhood, and thankful prayers,
• And a confused glad sense of novel cares,
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• And peeps into the future brightly given,
• As though her babe’s blue eyes turned earth to heaven!
• Never again could she, when Claud returned
• After brief absence, and her fond heart yearned
• To see his earnest eyes, with upward glancing,
• Greet her known windows, even while yet advancing,—
• Fly with light footsteps down the great hall‐stair,
• And give him welcome in the open air
• As though she were too glad to see him come,
• To wait till he should enter happy home,
• And there, quick‐breathing, glowing, sparkling stand,
• His arm round her slim waist; hand locked in hand;
• The mutual kiss exchanged of happy greeting,
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• That needs no secrecy of lovers’ meeting;
• While, giving welcome also in their way,
• Her dogs barked rustling round him, wild with play;
• And voices called, and hasty steps replied,
• And the sleek fiery steed was led aside,
• And the grey seneschal came forth and smiled,
• Who held him in his arms while yet a child;
• And cheery jinglings from unfastened doors,
• And vaulted echoes through long corridors,
• And distant bells that thrill along the wires,
• And stir of logs that heap up autumn fires,
• Crowned the glad eager bustle that makes known
• The Master’s step is on his threshold‐stone!

• Never again those rides so gladly shared,
• So much enjoyed,—in which so much was dared
• To prove no peril from the gate or brook,—
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• Need bring the shadow of an anxious look,
• To mar the pleasant ray of proud surprise
• That shone from out those dear protecting eyes.
• No more swift hurrying through the summer rain,
• That showered light silver on the freshened plain,
• Hung on the tassels of the hazel bough,
• And plashed the azure of the river’s flow.
• No more glad climbing of the mountain height,
• From whence a map, drawn out in lines of light,
• Showed dotting villages, and distant spires,
• And the red rows of metal‐burning fires,
• And purple covering woods, within which stand
• White mansions of the nobles of the land.

• No more sweet wanderings far from tread of men,
• In the deep thickets of the sunny glen,
• To see the vanished Spring bud forth again;
• Its well remembered tufts of primrose set
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• Among the sheltered banks of violet;
• Or in thatched summer‐houses sit and dream,
• Through gurgling gushes of the woodland stream;
• Then, rested rise, and by the sunset ray
• Saunter at will along the homeward way;
• Pausing at each delight,—the singing loud
• Of some sweet thrush, e’er lingering eve be done;
• Or the pink shining of some casual cloud
• That blushes deeper as it nears the sun.

• The rough woodpath; the little rocky burn;
• Nothing of this can ever now return.
• The life of joy is over: what is left
• Is a half life; a life of strength bereft;
• The body broken from the yearning soul,
• Never again to make a perfect whole!
• Helpless desires, and cravings unfulfilled;
• Bitter regret, in stormy weepings stilled;
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• Strivings whose easy effort used to bless,
• Grown full of danger and sharp weariness;
• This is the life whose dreadful dawn must rise
• When the night lifts, within whose gloom she lies:
• Hope, on whose lingering help she leaned so late,
• Struck from her clinging by the sword of fate—
• That wild word NEVER, to her shrinking gaze,
• Seems written on the wall in fiery rays.

• Never!—our helpless changeful natures shrink
• Before that word as from the grave’s cold brink!
• Set us a term whereto we must endure,
• And you shall find our crown of patience sure;
• But the irrevocable smites us down;—
• Helpless we lie before the eternal frown;
• Waters of Marah whelm the blinded soul,
• Stifle the heart, and drown our self‐control.
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• So, when she heard the grave physician speak,
• Horror crept through her veins, who, faint and weak,
• And tortured by all motion, yet had lain
• With a meek cheerfulness that conquered pain,
• Hoping,—till that dark hour. Give back the hope,
• Though years rise sad with intervening scope!
• Scarce can those radiant eyes with sickly stare
• Yet comprehend that sentence of despair:
• Crooked and sick for ever! Crooked and sick!
• She, in whose veins the passionate blood ran quick
• As leaps the rivulet from the mountain height,
• That dances rippling into Summer light;
• She, in whose cheek the rich bloom always stayed,
• And only deepened to a lovelier shade;
• She, whose fleet limbs no exercise could tire,
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• When wild hill‐climbing wooed her spirit higher!
• Knell not above her bed this funeral chime;
• Bid her be prisoner for a certain time;
• Tell her blank years must waste in that changed home,
• But not for ever,—not for life to come;
• Let infinite torture be her daily guest,
• But set a term beyond which shall be rest.

• In vain! she sees that trembling fountain rise,
• Tears of compassion in an old man’s eyes;
• And in low pitying tones, again he tells
• The doom that sounds to her like funeral bells.
• Long on his face her wistful gaze she kept;
• Then dropped her head, and wildly moaned and wept;
• Shivering through every limb, as lightning thought
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• Smote her with all the endless ruin wrought.
• Never to be a mother! Never give
• Another life beyond her own to live,
• Never to see her husband bless their child,
• Thinking (dear blessèd thought!) like him it smiled:
• Never again with Claud to walk or ride,
• Partake his pleasures with a playful pride,
• But cease from all companionship so shared,
• And only have the hours his pity spared.
• His pity—ah! his pity, would it prove
• As warm and lasting as admiring love?
• Or would her petty joys’ late‐spoken doom
• Carry the great joy with them to joy’s tomb?
• Would all the hopes of life at once take wing?
• The thought went through her with a secret sting,
• And she repeated, with a moaning cry,
• “Better to die, O God! ’Twere best to die!”
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• But we die not by wishing; in God’s hour,
• And not our own, do we yield up the power
• To suffer or enjoy. The broken heart
• Creeps through the world, encumbered by its clay;
• While dearly loved and cherished ones depart,
• Though prayer and sore lamenting clog their way.

• She lived: she left that sick room, and was brought
• Into the scenes of customary thought:
• The banquet‐room, where lonely sunshine slept,
• Saw her sweet eyes look round before she wept;
• The garden heard the slow wheels of her chair,
• When noon‐day heat had warmed the untried air;
• The pictures she had smiled upon for years,
• Met her gaze trembling through a mist of tears;
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• Her favourite dog, his long unspoken name
• Hearing once more, with timid fawning came;
• It seemed as if all things partook her blight,
• And sank in shadow like a spell of night.

• And she saw Claud,—Claud in the open day,
• Who through dim sunsets, curtained half away,
• And by the dawn, and by the lamp’s pale ray
• So long had watched her!
• And Claud also saw,
• That beauty which was once without a flaw;
• And flushed,—but strove to hide the sense of shock,—
• The feelings that some witchcraft seemed to mock.
• Are those her eyes, those eyes so full of pain?
• Her restless looks that hunt for ease in vain?
• Is that her step, that halt uneven tread?
• Is that her blooming cheek, so pale and dead?
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• Is that,—the querulous anxious mind that tells
• Its little ills, and on each ailment dwells,—
• The spirit alert which early morning stirred
• Even as it rouses every gladsome bird,
• Whose chorus of irregular music goes
• Up with the dew that leaves the sun‐touched rose?

• Oh! altered, altered; even the smile is gone,
• Which, like a sunbeam, once exulting shone!
• Smiles have returned; but not the smiles of yore;
• The joy, the youth, the triumph, are no more.
• An anxious smile remains, that disconnects
• Smiling from gladness; one that more dejects,
• Than floods of passionate weeping, for it tries
• To contradict the question of our eyes:
• We say, “Thou’rt pained, poor heart, and full of woe?”
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• It drops that shining veil, and answers “No;”
• Shrinks from the touch of unaccepted hands,
• And while it grieves, a show of joy commands.
• Wan shine such smiles;—as evening sunlight falls
• On a deserted house whose empty walls
• No longer echo to the children’s play
• Or voice of ruined inmates fled away;
• Where wintry winds alone, with idle state,
• Move the slow swinging of its rusty gate.

• But something sadder even than her pain
• Torments her now; and thrills each languid vein.
• Love’s tender instinct feels through every nerve
• When love’s desires, or love itself doth swerve.
• All the world’s praise re‐echoed to the sky
• Cancels not blame that shades a lover’s eye;
• All the world’s blame, which scorn for scorn repays,
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• Fails to disturb the joy of lover’s praise.
• Ah! think not vanity alone doth deck
• Wtih rounded pearls the young girl’s innocent neck,
• Who in her duller days contented tries
• The homely robe that with no rival vies,
• But on the happy night she hopes to meet
• The one to whom she comes with trembling feet,
• With crimson roses decks her bosom fair,
• Warm as the thoughts of love all glowing there,
• Because she must his favourite colours wear;
• And all the bloom and beauty of her youth
• Can scarce repay, she thinks, her lover’s truth.

• Vain is the argument so often moved,
• “Who feels no jealousy hath never loved;”
• She whose quick fading comes before her tomb,
• Is jealous even of her former bloom.
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• Restless she pines; because, to her distress,
• One charm the more is now one claim the less
• On his regard whose words are her chief treasures,
• And by whose love alone her worth she measures.

• Gertrude of La Garaye, thy heart is sore;
• A worm is gnawing at the rose’s core,
• A doubt corrodeth all thy tender trust,
• The freshness of thy day is choked in dust.
• Not for the pain—although the pain be great,
• Not for the change—though changed be all thy state;
• But for a sorrow dumb and unrevealed,
• Most from its cause with mournful care concealed—
• From Claud—who goes and who returns with sighs
• And gazes on his wife with wistful eyes,
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• And muses in his brief and cheerless rides
• If her dull mood will mend; and inly chides
• His own sad spirit, that sinks down so low,
• Instead of lifting her from all her woe;
• And thinks if he but loved her less, that he
• Could cheer her drooping soul with gaiety—
• But wonders evermore that Beauty’s loss
• To such a soul should seem so sore a cross.

• Until one evening in that quiet hush
• That lulls the falling day, when all the gush
• Of various sounds seem buried with the sun,
• He told his thought.
• As winter streamlets run,
• Freed by some sudden thaw, and swift make way
• Into the natural channels where they play,
• So leaped her young heart to his tender tone,
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• So, answering to his warmth, resumed her own;
• And all her doubt and all her grief confest,
• Leaning her faint head on his faithful breast.

• “Not always, Claud, did I my beauty prize;
• Thy words first made it precious in my eyes,
• And till thy fond voice made the gift seem rare,
• Nor tongue nor mirror taught me I was fair.
• I recked no more of beauty in that day
• Of happy girlishness and childlike play,
• Than some poor woodland bird who stays his flight
• On some low bough when summer days are bright,
• And in that pleasant sunshine sits and sings,
• And breaks the plumage of his glistening wings,
• Recks of the passer‐by who stands to praise
• His feathered smoothness and his thrilling lays.
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• But now, I make my moan—I make my moan—
• I weep the brightness lost, the beauty gone;
• Because, now, fading is to fall from thee,
• As the dead fruit falls blighted from the tree;
• For thee,—not vanished loveliness,—I weep;
• My beauty was a spell, thy love to keep;
• For I have heard and read how men forsake
• When time and tears that gift of beauty take,
• Nor care although the heart they leave may break!”

• A husband’s love was there—a husband’s love,—
• Strong, comforting, all other loves above;
• On her bowed neck he laid his tender hand,
• And his voice steadied to his soul’s command:
• “Oh! thou mistaken and unhappy child,
• Still thy complainings, for thy words are wild.
• Thy beauty, though so perfect, was but one
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• Of the bright ripples dancing to the sun,
• Which, from the hour I hoped to call thee wife,
• Glanced down the silver stream of happy life.
• Whatever change Time’s heavy clouds may make,
• Those are the waters which my thirst shall slake;
• River of all my hopes thou wert and art;
• The current of thy being bears my heart;
• Whether it sweep along in shine or shade,
• By barren rocks, or banks in flowers arrayed,
• Foam with the storm, or glide in soft repose,—
• In that deep channel, love unswerving flows!
• How canst thou dream of beauty as a thing
• On which depends the heart’s own withering?
• Lips budding red wth tints of vernal years,
• And delicate lids of eyes that shed no tears,
• And light that falls upon the shining hair
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• As though it found a second sunbeam there,—
• These must go by, my Gertrude, must go by;
• The leaf must wither and the flower must die;
• The rose can only have a rose’s bloom;
• Age would have wrought thy wondrous beauty’s doom;
• A little sooner did that beauty go—
• A little sooner—Darling, take it so;
• Nor add a strange despair to all this woe;
• And take my faith, by changes unremoved,
• To thy last hour of age and blight, beloved!”

• But she again,—“Alas! not from distrust
• I mourn, dear Claud, nor yet to thee unjust.
• I love thee: I believe thee: yea, I know
• Thy very soul is wrung to see my woe;
• The earthquake of compassion trembles still
• Within its depths, and conquers natural will.
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• But after,—after,—when the shock is past,—
• When cruel Time, who flies to change so fast,
• Hath made my suffering an accustomed thing,
• And only left me slowly withering;
• Then will the empty days rise chill and lorn,
• The lonely evening, the unwelcome morn,
• Until thy path at length be brightly crost
• By some one holding all that I have lost;
• Some one with youthful eyes, enchanting, bright,
• Full as the morning of a liquid light;
• And while my pale lip stiff and sad remains,
• Her smiles shall thrill like sunbeams through thy veins:
• I shall fade down, and she, with simple art,
• All bloom and beauty, dance into thy heart!
• Then, then, my Claud, shall I—at length alone—
• Recede from thee with an unnoticed moan,
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• Sink where none heed me, and be seen no more,
• Like waves that fringe the Netherlandish shore,
• Which roll unmurmuring to the flat low land,
• And sigh to death in that monotonous sand.”

• Again his earnest hand on hers he lays,
• With love and pain and wonder in his gaze.

• “Oh, darling! bitter word and bitter thought
• What dæmon to thy trusting heart hath brought?
• It may be thus within some sensual breast,
• By passion’s fire, not true love’s power possest;
• The creature love, that never lingers late,
• A springtide thirst for some chance‐chosen mate.
• Oh! my companion, ’twas not so with me;
• Not in the days long past, nor now shall be.
• The drunken dissolute hour of Love’s sweet cup,
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• When eyes are wild, and mantling blood is up,
• Even in my youth to me was all unknown:
• Until I truly loved, I was alone.
• I asked too much of intellect and grace,
• To pine, though young, for every pretty face,
• Whose passing brightness to quick fancies made
• A sort of sunshine in the idle shade;
• Beauties who starred the earth like common flowers,
• The careless eglantines of wayside bowers.
• I lingered till some blossom rich and rare
• Hung like a glory on the scented air,
• Enamouring at once the heart and eye,
• So that I paused, and could not pass it by.
• Then woke the passionate love within my heart,
• And only with my life shall that depart;
• ’Twas not so sensual strong, so loving weak,
• To ebb when ebbs the rose‐tinge on thy cheek;
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• Fade with thy fading, weakening day by day
• Till thy locks silver with a dawning grey:
• No, Gertrude, trust me, for thou may’st believe,
• A better faith is that which I receive;
• Sacred I’ll hold the sacred name of wife,
• And love thee to the sunset verge of life!
• Yea, shall so much of empire o’er man’s soul
• Live in a wanton’s smile, and no control
• Bind down his heart to keep a steadier faith,
• For links that are to last from life to death?
• Let those who can, in transient love rejoice,—
• Still to new hopes breathe forth successive sighs,—
• Give me the music of the accustomed voice,
• And the sweet light of long familiar eyes!”

• He ceased. But she, for all her fervent speech,
• Sighed as she listened. “Claud, I cannot reach
• The summit of the hope where thou wouldst set me,
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• And all I crave is never to forget me!
• Wedded I am to pain and not to thee,
• Thy life’s companion I no more can be,
• For thou remainest all thou wert—but I
• Am a fit bride for Death, and long to die.
• Yea, long for death; for thou wouldst miss me then
• More even than now, in mountain and in glen;
• And musing by the white tomb where I lay,
• Think of the happier time and earlier day,
• And wonder if the love another gave
• Equalled the passion buried in that grave.”

• Then with a patient tenderness he took
• That pale wife in his arms, with yearning look:
• “Oh! dearer now than when thy girlish tongue
• Faltered consent to love while both were young,
• Weep no more foolish tears, but lift thy head;
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• Those drops fall on my heart like molten lead;
• And all my soul is full of vain remorse,
• Because I let thee take that dangerous course,
• Share in the chase, pursue with horn and hound,
• And follow madly o’er the roughened ground.
• Not lightly did I love, nor lightly choose;
• Whate’er thou losest I will also lose;
• If bride of Death,—being first my chosen bride,—
• I will await death, lingering by thy side;
• And God, He knows, who reads all human thought,
• And by whose will this bitter hour was brought,
• How eagerly, could human pain be shifted,
• I would lie low, and thou once more be lifted
• To walk in beauty as thou didst before,
• And smile upon the welcome world once more.
• Oh! loved even to the brim of love’s full fount,
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• Wilt thou set nothing to firm faith’s account?
• Choke back thy tears which are thy bitter smart,
• Lean thy dear head upon my aching heart;
• It may be God, who saw our careless life,
• Not sinful, yet not blameless, my sweet wife,
• (Since all we thought of, in our youth’s bright May,
• Was but the coming joy from day to day;)
• Hath blotted out all joy to bid us learn
• That this is not our home; and make us turn
• From the enchanted earth, where much was given,
• To higher aims, and a forgotten heaven.”

• So spoke her love—and wept in spite of words;
• While her heart echoed all his heart’s accords,
• And leaning down, she said with whispering sigh,
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• “I sinned, my Claud, in wishing so to die.”
• Then they, who oft in Love’s delicious bowers
• Had fondly wasted glad and passionate hours,
• Kissed with a mutual moan:—but o’er their lips
• Love’s light passed clear, from under Life’s eclipse.