The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 15

Barbara. La, Miss Dorothy, I wouldn’t for the world.

Dorothy. Come, give it me. I want it. Thank you: you shall have my birthday pearls instead.

Miss Foster. Why, Dolly, I believe you’re jealous of the maid. Foster, Foster: always a Foster trick to wear the willow in anger.

Dorothy. I do not think, madam, that I am of a jealous habit.

Miss Foster. O, the personage is your excuse! And I can tell you, child, that when George Austin was playing Florizel to the Duchess’s Perdita, all the maids in England fell a prey to green-eyed melancholy. It was the ton, you see: not to pine for that Sylvander was to resign from good society.

Dorothy. Aunt Evelina, stop; I cannot endure to hear you. What is he after all but just Beau Austin? What has he done – with half a century of good health, what has he done that is either memorable or worthy? Diced and danced and set fashions; vanquished in a drawing-room, fought for a word; what else? As if these were the meaning of life! Do not make me think so poorly of all of us women. Sure, we can rise to admire a better kind of man than Mr. Austin. We are not all to be snared with the eye, dear aunt; and those that are – O! I know not whether I more hate or pity them.

Miss Foster. You will give me leave, my niece: such talk is neither becoming in a young lady nor creditable to your understanding. The world was made a great while before Miss Dorothy Musgrave; and you will do much better to ripen your opinions, and in the meantime read your letter, which I perceive you have not opened. (Dorothy opens and reads letter.) Barbara, child, you should not listen at table.

Barbara. Sure, madam, I hope I know my place.

Miss Foster. Then do not do it again.

Dorothy. Poor John Fenwick! he coming here!

Miss Foster. Well, and why not? Dorothy, my darling child, you give me pain. You never had but one chance, let me tell you pointedly; and that was John Fenwick. If I were you, I would not let my vanity so blind me. This is not the way to marry.

Dorothy. Dear aunt, I shall never marry.

Miss Foster. A fiddlestick’s end! every one must marry. (Rising.) Are you for the Pantiles?

Dorothy. Not to-day, dear.

Miss Foster. Well, well! have your wish, Dolorosa. – Barbara, attend and dress me.

SCENE III

Dorothy. How she tortures me, poor aunt, my poor blind aunt; and I – I could break her heart with a word. That she should see nothing, know nothing – there’s where it kills. O, it is more than I can bear … and yet, how much less than I deserve! Mad girl, of what do I complain? that this dear innocent woman still believes me good, still pierces me to the soul with trustfulness. Alas, and were it otherwise, were her dear eyes opened to the truth, what were left me but death? – He, too – she must still be praising him, and every word is a lash upon my conscience. If I could die of my secret: if I could cease – but one moment cease – this living lie; if I could sleep and forget and be at rest! – Poor John! (reading the letter) he at least is guiltless; and yet for my fault he too must suffer, he too must bear part in my shame. Poor John Fenwick! Has he come back with the old story: with what might have been, perhaps, had we stayed by Edenside? Eden? yes, my Eden, from which I fell. O, my old north country, my old river – the river of my innocence, the old country of my hopes – how could I endure to look on you now? And how to meet John? – John, with the old love on his lips, the old, honest, innocent, faithful heart! There was a Dorothy once who was not unfit to ride with him, her heart as light as his, her life as clear as the bright rivers we forded; he called her his Diana, he crowned her so with rowan. Where is that Dorothy now? that Diana? she that was everything to John? For O, I did him good; I know I did him good; I will still believe I did him good: I made him honest and kind and a true man; alas, and could not guide myself! And now, how will he despise me! For he shall know; if I die, he shall know all; I could not live, and not be true with him. (She takes out the necklace and looks at it.) That he should have bought me from my maid! George, George, that you should have stooped to this! Basely as you have used me, this is the basest. Perish the witness. (She treads the trinket under foot.) Break, break like my heart, break like my hopes, perish like my good name!

SCENE IV

To her, Fenwick, C

Fenwick (after a pause). Is this how you receive me, Dorothy? Am I not welcome? – Shall I go then?

Dorothy (running to him, with hands outstretched). O no, John, not for me. (Turning and pointing to the necklace.) But you find me changed.

Fenwick (with a movement towards the necklace). This?

Dorothy. No, no, let it lie. That is a trinket – broken. But the old Dorothy is dead.

Fenwick. Dead, dear? Not to me.

Dorothy. Dead to you – dead to all men.

Fenwick. Dorothy, I loved you as a boy. There is not a meadow on Edenside but is dear to me for your sake, not a cottage but recalls your goodness, not a rock nor a tree but brings back something of the best and brightest youth man ever had. You were my teacher and my queen; I walked with you, I talked with you, I rode with you; I lived in your shadow; I saw with your eyes. You will never know, dear Dorothy, what you were to the dull boy you bore with; you will never know with what romance you filled my life, with what devotion, with what tenderness and honour. At night I lay awake and worshipped you; in my dreams I saw you, and you loved me; and you remember, when we told each other stories – you have not forgotten, dearest – that Princess Hawthorn that was still the heroine of mine: who was she? I was not bold enough to tell, but she was you! You, my virgin huntress, my Diana, my queen.

Dorothy. O silence, silence – pity!

Fenwick. No, dear; neither for your sake nor mine will I be silenced. I have begun; I must go on and finish, and put fortune to the touch. It was from you I learned honour, duty, piety, and love. I am as you made me, and I exist but to reverence and serve you. Why else have I come here, the length of England, my heart burning higher every mile, my very horse a clog to me? – why, but to ask you for my wife? Dorothy, you will not deny me?

Dorothy. You have not asked me about this broken trinket?

Fenwick. Why should I ask? I love you.

Dorothy. Yet I must tell you. Sit down. (She picks up the necklace, and stands looking at it. Then, breaking down.) O John, John, it’s long since I left home.

Fenwick. Too long, dear love. The very trees will welcome you.

Dorothy. Ay, John, but I no longer love you. The old Dorothy is dead, God pardon her!

Fenwick. Dorothy, who is the man?

Dorothy. O poor Dorothy! O poor dead Dorothy! John, you found me breaking this: me, your Diana of the Fells, the Diana of your old romance by Edenside. Diana – O what a name for me! Do you see this trinket? It is a chapter in my life. A chapter, do I say? my whole life, for there is none to follow. John, you must bear with me, you must help me. I have that to tell – there is a secret – I have a secret, John – O, for God’s sake, understand. That Diana you revered – O John, John, you must never speak of love to me again.

Fenwick. What do you say? How dare you?

Dorothy. John, it is the truth. Your Diana, even she, she whom you believed in, she who so believed in herself, came out into the world only to be broken. I met, here at the Wells, a man – why should I tell you his name? I met him, and I loved him. My heart was all his own; yet he was not content with that: he must intrigue to catch me, he must bribe my maid with this. (Throws the necklace on the table.) Did he love me? Well, John, he said he did; and be it so! He loved, he betrayed, and he has left me.

Fenwick. Betrayed?

Dorothy. Ay, even so; I was betrayed. The fault was mine that I forgot our innocent youth, and your honest love.

Fenwick. Dorothy, O Dorothy!

Dorothy. Yours is the pain; but, O John, think it is for your good. Think in England how many true maids may be waiting for your love, how many that can bring you a whole heart, and be a noble mother to your children, while your poor Diana, at the first touch, has proved all frailty. Go, go and be happy, and let me be patient. I have sinned.

Fenwick. By God, I’ll have his blood.

Dorothy. Stop! I love him. (Between Fenwick and door, C.)

Fenwick. What do I care? I loved you too. Little he thought of that, little either of you thought of that. His blood – I’ll have his blood!

Dorothy. You shall never know his name.

Fenwick. Know it? Do you think I cannot guess? Do you think I had not heard he followed you? Do you think I had not suffered – O, suffered! George Austin is the man. Dear shall he pay it!

Dorothy (at his feet). Pity me; spare me; spare your Dorothy! I love him – love him – love him!

Fenwick. Dorothy, you have robbed me of my happiness, and now you would rob me of my revenge.

Dorothy. I know it; and shall I ask, and you not grant?

Fenwick (raising her). No, Dorothy, you shall ask nothing, nothing in vain from me. You ask his life; I give it you, as I would give you my soul; as I would give you my life, if I had any left. My life is done; you have taken it. Not a hope, not an end; not even revenge. (He sits.) Dorothy, you see your work.