Lucile. Earl of Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton Lytton
… a portrait … a ring …
With a pledge to return them whenever the one
Or the other shall call for them back.
JOHN.
Pray go on.
ALFRED.
My story is finish'd. Of course I enjoin
On Lucile all those thousand good maxims we coin
To supply the grim deficit found in our days,
When love leaves them bankrupt. I preach. She obeys.
She goes out in the world; takes to dancing once more—
A pleasure she rarely indulged in before.
I go back to my post, and collect (I must own
'Tis a taste I had never before, my dear John)
Antiques and small Elzevirs. Heigho! now, Jack,
You know all.
JOHN (after a pause).
You are really resolved to go back?
ALFRED.
Eh, where?
JOHN.
To that worst of all places—the past.
You remember Lot's wife?
ALFRED.
'Twas a promise when last
We parted. My honor is pledged to it.
JOHN.
Well,
What is it you wish me to do?
ALFRED.
You must tell
Matilda, I meant to have call'd—to leave word—
To explain—but the time was so pressing—
JOHN.
My lord,
Your lordship's obedient! I really can't do …
ALFRED.
You wish then to break off my marriage?
JOHN.
No, no!
But indeed I can't see why yourself you need take
These letters.
ALFRED.
Not see? would you have me, then, break
A promise my honor is pledged to?
JOHN (humming).
"Off, off
And away! said the stranger" …
ALFRED.
Oh, good! oh, you scoff!
JOHN.
At what, my dear Alfred?
ALFRED.
At all things!
JOHN.
Indeed?
ALFRED.
Yes; I see that your heart is as dry as a reed:
That the dew of your youth is rubb'd off you: I see
You have no feeling left in you, even for me!
At honor you jest; you are cold as a stone
To the warm voice of friendship. Belief you have none;
You have lost faith in all things. You carry a blight
About with you everywhere. Yes, at the sight
Of such callous indifference, who could be calm?
I must leave you at once, Jack, or else the last balm
That is left me in Gilead you'll turn into gall.
Heartless, cold, unconcern'd …
JOHN.
Have you done? Is that all?
Well, then, listen to me! I presume when you made
up your mind to propose to Miss Darcy, you weigh'd
All the drawbacks against the equivalent gains,
Ere you finally settled the point. What remains
But to stick to your choice? You want money: 'tis here.
A settled position: 'tis yours. A career:
You secure it. A wife, young, and pretty as rich,
Whom all men will envy you. Why must you itch
To be running away, on the eve of all this,
To a woman whom never for once did you miss
All these years since you left her? Who knows what may hap?
This letter—to ME—is a palpable trap.
The woman has changed since you knew her. Perchance
She yet seeks to renew her youth's broken romance.
When women begin to feel youth and their beauty
Slip from them, they count it a sort of a duty
To let nothing else slip away unsecured
Which these, while they lasted, might once have procured.
Lucile's a coquette to the end of her fingers,
I will stake my last farthing. Perhaps the wish lingers
To recall the once reckless, indifferent lover
To the feet he has left; let intrigue now recover
What truth could not keep. 'Twere a vengeance, no doubt—
A triumph;—but why must YOU bring it about?
You are risking the substance of all that you schemed
To obtain; and for what? some mad dream you have dream'd.
ALFRED.
But there's nothing to risk. You exaggerate, Jack,
You mistake. In three days, at the most, I am back.
JOHN.
Ay, but how? … discontented, unsettled, upset,
Bearing with you a comfortless twinge of regret.
Preoccupied, sulky, and likely enough
To make your betroth'd break off all in a huff.
Three days, do you say? But in three days who knows
What may happen? I don't, nor do you, I suppose.
V.
Of all the good things in this good world around us,
The one most abundantly furnish'd and found us,
And which, for that reason, we least care about,
And can best spare our friends, is good counsel, no doubt.
But advice, when 'tis sought from a friend (though civility
May forbid to avow it), means mere liability
In the bill we already have drawn on Remorse,
Which we deem that a true friend is bound to indorse.
A mere lecture on debt from that friend is a bore.
Thus, the better his cousin's advice was, the more
Alfred Vargrave with angry resentment opposed it.
And, having the worst of the contest, he closed it
With so firm a resolve his bad ground to maintain,
That, sadly perceiving resistance was vain,
And argument fruitless, the amiable Jack
Came to terms and assisted his cousin to pack
A slender valise (the