Nowhere in the vast vista of literature is there an episode more
exquisitely pathetic than that serene picture of the Grove at Colonus,
sacred to the "Semnai Theai;" where the dewy freshness, the floral
loveliness, the spicery, and all the warbling witchery of nature pay
tribute to the Avenging Goddesses.
Twenty-two centuries have sifted their dust over the immortal figures
seated on the marble bench within the precincts consecrated to the
Eumenides, but in deathless tenacity, the rich aroma of Sophocles'
narcissus, and the soft crocus light linger there still; while from
thickets of olive, nightingales break their hearts in song, as
thrilling as the melody that smote the ears of doomed and dying Oedipus.
So in all ages, we, born thralls of grief, lift streaming eyes, and
chant elegies to stony-hearted Mother-Earth, but her starry orbs shine
on, undimmed by sympathetic tears; her smiling lips show only sunshine
in their changeless dimples, and her myriad fingers sweeping the keys
of the Universal Organ, drown our De Profundis in the rhythmic thunders
of her Jubilate. Wailing children of Time, we crouch and tug at the
moss-velvet, daisy-sprinkled skirts of the mighty Mater, praying some
lullaby from her to soothe our pain; but human woe frets not her
sublime serenity, as deaf as desert sphinx, she fronts the future.
Some echo of this maddening mystery sounded in the ears of the lonely
woman, who clutched the bars of her dungeon, and stared through its
iron lattice, at the peaceful, happy, outside world. At her feet lay
X---, divided by the silvery river, which, here rushed with arrowy
swiftness under the gray stone arches of the bridge, and there widened
into glassy lakelets, as if weary from the mad plunge over a distant
rocky ledge in mid-stream, whence the dull steady roar of the "falls"
thrilled the atmosphere, like the "tremolo" in a dim cathedral, where
fading daylight dies on painted apse and gilded pipes. As a chessboard
the squares of buildings were spread out, defined by wide streets,
where humanity and its traffic sped, busy as ants. In a green plot, the
sombre facade of the court-house surmounted by an eyeless stone statue
of Justice, frowned on the frivolous throng below; and along the verge
of the common, marble fingers pointed up to the heaven of blue that
bent above "God's Acre"; while now and then, bulbous towers, and
glittering steeple vanes, caught the sunshine on their polished crests.
Beyond the whole, and bounding the valley filled with a billowy sea of
bluish-green pine tops, rose a wooded eminence, wearing still its
Persian robe of autumn foliage, and on its brow the colonnade and
chimneys of "Elm Bluff" blotted the southern sky, like a threatening
phantom.
To-day forest, stream, earth and sky, appeared branded with one fatal
word, as if the world's wide page held only "Ricordo! Ricordo!"
Beryl shut her eyes and groaned; but the scene merely shifted to a dell
under the shadow of Carrara hills, where olives set "Ricordo" among
their silver leaves; and lemons painted "Ricordo" in their pale gold;
and scarlet pomegranates and nodding violets, burning anemones and
tender green of trailing maiden-hair ferns all blazoned "Ricordo."
The fierce tide of wrath, that indignation and her keen sense of
outraged innocence had poured like molten lead through her throbbing
arteries, was oozing sluggishly, congealing under the awful spell of
that one word "Ricordo." Hitherto, the shame of the suspicion, the
degradation of the imprisonment had caught and empaled her thoughts;
but by degrees, these became dwarfed by the growing shadow of a
possibly ignominious death, which spread its sable pinions along the
rosy dawn of her womanhood, and devoured the glorious sun of her high
hopes. The freezing gloom was creeping nearer, and to-day she could
expect no succor, save by one avenue.
Islam believes that only the cimeter edge of Al Sirat divides Paradise
from perdition. Beryl realized that in her peril, she trod an equally
narrow snare, over yawning ruin, holding by a single thread of hope
that handkerchief. Weak natures shiver and procrastinate, shunning
confirmation of their dread; but to this woman had come a frantic
longing to see, to grasp, to embrace the worst. She was in a death
grapple with appalling fate, and that handkerchief would decide the
issue.
Physical exhaustion was following close upon the mental agony that had
stretched her on the rack, for so many days and nights. To sit still
was impossible, yet in her wandering up and down the narrow room, she
reeled, and sometimes staggered against the wall, dizzy from weakness,
to which she would not succumb.
Human help was no more possible for her, than for Moses, when he
climbed Nebo to die; and alone with her God, the brave soul wrestled.
Wearily she leaned against the window bars, twining her hot fingers
around them, pressing her forehead to the cold barrier; and everywhere
"Ricordo" stabbed her eyes like glowing steel.
The door opened, some words were uttered in an undertone, then the bolt
clicked in its socket, and Mr. Dunbar approached the window.
Mechanically Beryl glanced over her shoulder, and a shiver crept across
her.
"I believe you know me. Dunbar is my name."
He stood at her side, and they looked into each other's eyes, and
measured lances. Could this worn, pallid woman, be the same person who
in the fresh vigor of her youthful beauty, had suggested to him on the
steps of "Elm Bluff," an image of Hygeia? Here insouciante girlhood was
dead as Manetho's dynasties, and years seemed to have passed over this
auburn head since he saw it last. Human faces are Nature's highest type
of etchings, and mental anguish bites deeper than Dutch mordant;
heart-ache is the keen needle that traces finest lines.
"Yes, I know you only too well. You are Tiberius."
Her luminous deep eyes held his at bay, and despite his habitual,
haughty equipoise, her crisp tone of measureless aversion stung him.
"Sarcasm is an ill-selected arbiter between you and me; and your fate
for all time, your future weal or woe is rather a costly shuttlecock to
be tossed to and fro in a game of words. I do not come to bandy
phrases, and in view of your imminent peril, I cannot quite understand
your irony."
"Understand me? You never will. Did the bloodthirsty soul of Tiberius
comprehend the stainless innocence of the victims he crushed for
pastime on the rocks below Villa Jovis? There is but one arbiter for
your hatred, the hang-man, to whom you would so gladly hurry me.
Hunting a woman to the gallows is fit sport for men of your type."
Unable to withdraw his gaze from the magnetism of hers, he frowned and
bit his lip. Was she feigning madness, or under the terrible nervous
strain, did her mind wander?
"Your language is so enigmatical, that I am forced to conclude you
resort to this method of defence. The exigencies of professional duty
compel me to assume toward you an attitude, as painfully embarrassing
to me as it is threatening to you. Because the stern and bitter law of
justice sometimes entails keen sorrow upon those who are forced to
execute her decrees, is it any less obligatory upon the appointed
officers to obey the solemn behests?"
"Justice! Into what a frightful mockery have such as you degraded her
worship! No wonder justice fled to the stars. You are the appointed
officer of a harpy screaming for the blood of the innocent. How dare
you commit your crimes, raise your red hands, in the sacred name of
justice? Call yourself the priest of a frantic vengeance, for whom some
victim must be provided; and libel no more the attribute of Jehovah."
Scorn curled her lips, and beneath her glowing eyes, his grew restless,
as panoplied in conscious innocence she seemed to defy attack.
"You evidently credit me with motives of personal animosity, which
would alike disgrace my profession and my manhood. For your sake,
rather than my own, I should like to remove this erroneous impression
from your mind. If you could only understand--"
She threw up her hand, with an imperious gesture of disdain.
"Save your sophistries; they are wasted here. Why multiply cobwebs? I
understand you. If doves have a sixth sense that warns them before they
hear the hawk's cry, or discern the shadow of his circling wings, and
if mice, dumb in a cat's claws, surmise the exact value of the
preliminary caresses, the graceful antics, the fatal fondling of the
velvet paw, so we, the prey of legal 'Justice' know instinctively what
the swinging of censers, and the chanting of her high priest mean, when
he draws near us. I understand you. You intend to hang me if you can."
He drew his breath with a hissing sound, and a dark flush Stained his
broad smooth brow.
"On my honor as a gentleman, I came here to-day solely to--"
"Solely to assure yourself of some doubtful link you must weld into
your chain; solely to plunge the scalpel of some double-edged question.
If there must be an ante mortem examination, we will wait, if you
please, for the legal dissection when I am stretched before the
jury-box. Until then, you have no right to intrude upon the misery you
have brought on an innocent woman."
They stood so near each other, that he could count the fierce throbbing
of the artery in her round snowy throat, and see the shadow of her long
lashes; and again some electric current flashed from her feverishly
bright eyes, burning its way to the secret chambers of his selfish
heart, melting the dross that ambition and greed had slowly cemented,
and dropping one deathless spark into a deep adytum, of the existence
of which he had never even dreamed. Unconsciously he leaned toward her,
but she pressed back against the iron bars, and drew her dress aside as
if shunning a leper. There was no petulance in the motion, but its
significance pricked him, like a dagger point.
"It was the hope of finding you an innocent woman, that must plead my
pardon for what you consider an unwarrantable 'intrusion.' Will you
believe me, if I swear to you, that I have come as a friend?"
"As a friend to me? No. As a friend to General Darrington and his
adopted son Prince? Yes. Oh, Tiberius! Your rosy apples are flavored
like those your forefather offered Agrippina."
"Do you regard me as an unscrupulous, calculating villain, who
pretending kindness, plots treachery? Do you deliberately offer me this
wanton insult?"
His swart face reddened, and the fine lines of his handsome mouth
hardened.
She shrank a few inches closer to the window, and compressed her lips.
"If you were a man, I should swiftly resent the affront you have thrust
upon me, and suitable redress would be peculiarly sweet and welcome;
but you are a defenceless and unfortunate woman, and my hands are tied.
I desire to help you; you repulse me and insult my manhood. I will do
my painful duty, because it is sternly and inexorably my duty; but, I
wish to God, I had never set my eyes on you."
The sudden passionate ring in his voice surprised her, and she looked
searchingly at him, wondering into what pitfall it was intended to lure
her.
"If you had never set your eyes on me? Ah, would to God I had died ten
thousand times before I encountered their evil spell! If you had never
set your eyes on me? I should be now, a happy, hopeful girl, with life
beckoning me like the rosy Syrian plains that smiled on the
desert-weary. The world looked so bright to me that day, when first I
smelled the sweet resinous pines, and dreamed of my work, and all the
glory of the victory, I knew that I should win over poverty and want. I
was so poor in worldly goods, but oh!--Croesus could not have bought my
proud hopes! So rich, so overflowing with high hope! As I think of my
feelings that day, among the primroses and pine cones, it seems a
hundred years ago, and I recall the image of a girl long dead; such a
proud girl; so happy in the beautiful world of the art she loved! Then
some strange awful curse that had lain in wait, ambushed among the
flowers I gathered that last day of my dead existence, fell upon me--I
saw you! No wonder I shivered, when you met me. I saw you. Then my sun
sickened and went out, and my hopes crumbled, and my youth shrivelled
and perished forever; and the wide world is a rayless dungeon, and the
girl Beryl is buried so deep, that the Angels of the Resurrection will
never find her!--and I?--I am only a withered, disgraced woman, hurled
into a den; trampled, branded; with a soul devoured by despairing
bitterness, with a broken heart, a brain on fire! If you had drawn a
knife across my throat, or sent a bullet through my temples, my spirit
might have rested in the Beyond, and I could have forgiven that which
hastened me to heaven; but you strangled my hopes, and mutilated my
youth, and dishonored my father's name!--You robbed me of my stainless
character, and cast me among outlaws and fiends!--Worse yet, oh!
blackest of all your crimes!--you have almost throttled my faith in
Christ. You have torn away my hold upon the eternal God! You are the
curse of my life. You wish you had never set your eyes on me? Take
courage, finish your work; the best of me is utterly dead already, and
when you have taken my blood, and laid my polluted body in a convict's
shallow grave, your enmity will be satiated. Then I, at least, I shall
be free from my hideous curse. If there be any comfort left me, it
lurks in the knowledge that when you succeed in convicting me, the same
world will no longer hold us both."
Was it the fever of disease, or incipient madness that blazed in her
eyes, flamed on her cheeks, and lent such thrilling cadence to her pure
clear voice? Was she a consummate actress, or had he made a frightful
mistake, and goaded an innocent girl to the verge of frenzy? Some
occult influence seemed clouding his hitherto infallible perceptions,
melting his heart, paralyzing his will. He walked up and down the
floor, with his hands clasped behind him, then came close to the
prisoner.
"If I have unjustly suspected and persecuted you, may God forgive me!
If I have wronged you by suspicion and accusation of a crime which you
did not commit, then my atonement shall be your triumphant vindication.
I would give a good deal to know that your hands are as pure as they
look, and innocent of theft and murder. Tell me--tell me the truth. I
will save you, I will give you back all that you have lost, and tenfold
more. For God's sake, for your own sake, and for mine, I entreat you to
tell me the truth. Did you go back to 'Elm Bluff' that night, after I
met you in the pine woods?"
His dark face was close to hers, and his keen blue eyes seemed to probe
the recesses of her soul. If she answered, would the steel springs of
some trap close upon her?
"I did not go back to 'Elm Bluff.' My hands, my heart, my soul are as
free from crime as they were when God sent them into the world. I am
innocent--innocent--innocent as any baby only a week old, lying dead in
its little coffin. Innocent--but defiled, disgraced; innocent as the
Lord Jesus was of the sins for which He died; but you can not save what
you have destroyed. You have ruined my life."
He was a strong man, cold, collected, priding himself upon his superb
physique, his nerves of steel; but as he watched and listened, he
trembled, and the girl's eyes dilated, sparkled through the sudden
moisture that so strangely and unexpectedly gathered in his own.
"Then you must prove the truth of your solemn words; and it was this
faint hope that induced me to come here to-day. Only one circumstance
stands between the Grand Jury and your indictment for murder; and time
presses. Now tell me, do you know this?"
He took from his coat pocket a small parcel wrapped in paper, and tore
off the covering. Beryl stood faint and dizzy, resting against the
window, but erect, on guard and defiant. He shook out and held up a
square of fine linen, daintily hem-stitched. Along the border ran
graceful arabesques, swelling into scallops and dotted with stars,
embroidered in some rich red thread; and in one corner, enclosed in a
wreath of exquisitely designed fuchsias, the large, elaborately ornate
capitals "B. B." were worked in fadeless scarlet scrolls to match the
wreath. Above the drooping flowers, poised the red wings of a
descending butterfly. Artistic instincts had outlined, and deft
delicate touches filled in, with the glowing embroidery.
Did she know it? Could she ever forget that serene May day when the air
was liquid gold, and the Mediterranean molten sapphire, wreathed with
pearls, as the wavelets crested; when the rosy oleanders and silvery
flakes of orange blossoms floated down upon the ferny cliff, where
sitting by her father's side, she had drawn this design, spreading the
linen on the back of her father's worn copy of Theocritus? If she lived
a thousand years, would it be possible to forget the thin, almost
transparent white hand, with its blue veins swollen like cords, which
had gently taken the pencil from her fingers, and retouched and rounded
the sweep of the curves; the dear wasted hand that she had stooped and
kissed, as it corrected her work?
As on the golden background of a cherished Byzantine picture, memory
held untarnished every tint and outline of that blessed day, when she
and her father had looked for the last time on the sunny sea they loved
so well.
Did fell fate hover, even then, in that sparkling perfumed air, and in
sinister prescience trace this tangling web of threads, with grim
intent to snare her unwary feet?
Savants tell us, that ages ago, in the dim dawn, primeval rain drops
made their pattering print, and left it to harden on the stone pages,
awaiting decipherment by human eyes and human brains, not yet
"Born of the brainless Nature,
Who knew not that which she bore."
Is there an analogous iron chain linking the merest trifles, the
frivolous accidents, the apparently worthless coincidences that swell
the sum of what we are pleased to call the nobly independent life of
the "free-agent" Man? In the matrix of time, do human tears and human
blood-drops leave their record, to be conned when Nemesis holds her
last assize?
As the handkerchief swayed in the lawyer's grasp, Beryl saw the red "B.
B." like a bloody brand. At that instant she felt that the death clutch
fastened upon her throat; that fate had cast her adrift, on the black
waves of despair. In her reeling brain kaleidoscopic images danced; her
father's face, the lateen sail of fishing boats rocking on blue
billows, white oxen browsing amid purple iris clusters; she heard her
mother's voice, her brother's gay laugh; she smelled the prussic acid
fragrance of the vivid oleanders, then over all, like tongues of
devouring flames, flickered "Ricordo." "B. B."
In the frenzy of her desperation she sprang forward, seized the arms
that held up the fatal handkerchief, and shook the man, as if he had
been an infant. Her eyes full of horror, were fixed on the scrap of
linen, and a frantic cry rang from her lips.
"Father! Father! There is no hereafter for you and me! Prayer is but
the mockery of fools! There is no heaven for the pure, because there is
no God! No God!--to hear, to save the innocent who trusted in Him.
Oh--no God!"
Mr. Dunbar dropped the handkerchief, and as the irresistible conviction
of her guilt rolled back, crushing the hope he had cherished a moment
before, a spasm of pain seized his heart, and with a groan that would
not be repressed, he covered his eyes to shut out the vision of the
despairing woman, whose doom seemed sealed. Her right hand which
unconsciously clutched his left shoulder, shivered like an aspen, and
he knew that for the moment she was entirely oblivious of his presence;
blind to everything but the assurance of her ruin.
After all, he had made no mistake; his keen insight was well nigh
infallible; but his triumph was costly. The luscious fruit of
professional success left an acrid flavor; the pungent dead sea ashes
sifted freely. He set his heel on the embroidered butterfly, and in his
heart cursed the hour he had first seen it. His coveted bread was
petrifying between his teeth.
The grasp on his shoulder relaxed, the hand fell heavily. When he
looked in the face of his victim, he caught his breath at the strange,
inexplicable change a few minutes had wrought. Protest and resistance
had come to an end. Surrender was printed on every feature. The wild
fury of the passionate struggle that convulsed her, had spent itself;
and as after a violent wintry tempest the gale subsides, and the snow
compassionately shrouds the scene, burning the dead sparrows, the
bruised flowers, so submission laid her cold touch on this quivering
face, and veiled and froze it.
From afar the sound of rushing waters seemed to smite Beryl's ears, to
surge nearer, to overflow her brain. She sank suddenly to the floor,
clinging with one hand to the window bar, and her auburn head fell
forward on the up-lifted arm. Thinking that she had fainted, Mr.
Dunbar stooped and raised her face, holding it in his palms. The eyes
met his, unflinching but mournful as those of a tormented deer whom the
hunters drag from worrying hounds. She writhed, freed herself from his
touch; and resting against the window sill, drew a long deep breath.
"You have succeeded in your mission today. You have the only clue you
needed. You have no occasion to linger. Now--will you leave me?"
He picked up the handkerchief.
"This is your handkerchief?"
She made no answer. A leaden hand was pressing upon her heart, her
brain, her aching eyes.
"You have basely deceived me. You did go back that night, and you left
this, to betray you. Saturated with chloroform you laid it over your
grandfather's face. Load your soul with no more falsehoods. Confess the
deeds of that awful night."
"I did not go back. I never saw 'Elm Bluff' after I met you. I know no
more of the chloroform than you do. I have told the truth first and
last, and always. I have no confession to make. I am as innocent as you
are. Innocent! Innocent! You are going to hang me for a crime I did not
commit. When you do, you will murder an innocent woman."
She spoke slowly, solemnly, and at intervals, as if she found it
difficult to express her meaning. The passionless tone was that of one,
standing where the river of death flowed close to her feet, and her
beautiful face shone with the transfiguring light of conscious purity.
"Hold up your hand, and tell me this is not your handkerchief; and I
will yet save you."
"It was my handkerchief, but I am innocent. Finish your work."
"How can you expect me to believe your contradictory statements?"
Wearily she turned her head, and looked at him. A strange drowsiness
dimmed her vision, thickened her speech.
"I expect nothing from you--but--death."
"Will you explain how your handkerchief chanced to be found on your
grandfather's pillow? Trust me, I am trying to believe you. Tell me."
In his eagerness he seized her hand, clasped it tightly, bent over her.
She made no reply, and the silky black lashes sank lower, lower till
they touched the violet circle suffering had worn under her eyes. Like
a lily too heavy for its stem, the glossy head fell upon her breast.
Her hot fingers throbbed in his palm, and when he felt her pulse, the
rapid bounding tide defied his counting. Kneeling beside her, he laid
the head against his shoulder.
"Are you ill? What is the matter? Speak to me."
Her parched lips unclosed, and she muttered with a sigh, like a child
falling asleep after long sobbing:
"My handkerchief--Tiberius--my--han--"
She had fought against fearful odds, with sleepless nights and fasting
days sapping her strength; and when the battle ended, though the will
was unfaltering, physical exhaustion triumphed, and delirium mercifully
took the tortured spirit into her cradling arms.