The Christmas Sabbath dawned cold and dim, and along the eastern sky
gray marbled masses of cloud with dun, stratified bases, built
themselves into the likeness of vast teocallis to Tonatiuh, over whose
apex the struggling rays fell red and presageful. Dulled by the stained
glass windows, the light that filled the semi-circular chapel at "The
Lilacs", was chill and sombre, until the fair sacristan held a taper
over the tall wax candles on each side of the altar, whence a mellow
radiance soon streamed over all; flashing along the golden letters
under the cross, and upon the gilded pipes of the little organ. On the
marble steps in front of the altar were two baskets filled with white
camellias, and great spikes of pink and blue hyacinths, that seemed to
break their hearts in waves of aromatic incense. The family Bible of
the Gordons lay open, on the reading desk, and upon its yellow pages
rested a Maltese cross of snowy Roman hyacinths. Looping back the
purple velvet portiere over the arch leading into the library, Leo sat
down on the organ bench to await the coming of the family, leisurely
arranged the stops, and marked in her prayer-book the Collect for
Christmas. In her morning robe of crimson cashmere, with its cascade of
soft rich lace foaming from throat to feet, and wearing a dainty
cluster of double white violets fastened just below one ear, where the
wax light kissed her sunny hair, she appeared a St. Cecilia, very fair
and sweet, to the eyes of the man who stood a moment unperceived
beneath the arch. A figure of medium height, clad in priestly garments,
with a white surplice sweeping to the marble floor; a finely modelled
head thickly fleeced with light brown hair, a serene pleasant face,
with regular features, deep-set black eyes magnified by spectacles, and
an expression of habitual placidity, that bespoke a soul consecrated by
noble aims, and at perfect peace with his God.
Hearing his step as he crossed the floor, Leo looked over her shoulder,
smiled, and began to play softly, while he ascended the steps and knelt
before the altar. After some moments Miss Patty rustled in, sank on her
knees and finally settled herself comfortably on one of the
crescent-shaped, cushioned sofas; then Judge Dent entered, followed by
Justine and the aged negro butler, Joel, the two servants finding seats
just behind their master. Doctor Leighton Douglass selected his hymns,
and the leaves of five prayer-books fluttered, as Collects were found,
but Leo continued to play.
Twice she turned and looked around the chapel, seeking some one,
delaying the commencement of the service. Finally accepting defeat, her
pretty fingers fell from the keys, and with them dropped two tears,
forced from her by the keen disappointment that robbed this occasion of
all its anticipated pleasure. Singularly free from fashionable
elocutionary affectations, and certain declamatory stage tricks, by
which the recitation of the Creed and the Lord's Prayer becomes a
competitive test of lungs in the race for breath, Leighton Douglass
read the morning service, in a well-modulated voice, and with a
profound solemnity that left its impress on each heart. The responses
were fervent, and the Christmas hymns were sung with joyful
earnestness; then priestly arms rose like the wings of a great snowy
dove, and from holy, priestly lips fell the mellow music of the
benediction:
"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. Amen."
Even while he pronounced the words, a whirring rustle filled the
beautiful oratory, and two of Leo's pet ring-doves, fluttering round
and round the frescoed ceiling, descended swiftly. One perched upon her
head, cooing softly, and its mate nestled down with outspread pinions,
pecking at the white muslin folds on Doctor Douglass' shoulder.
"Paracletes, dun plumed! Leo, let us accept them as happy auguries,
prophetic of divine blessing on our future work in the Master's
vineyard. My cousin, I wish you a very happy Christmas."
He had approached the organ where she sat, and held out his hand.
"Happy Christmas, Leighton, and many thanks to you for this
consecrating service in my place of prayer. After today, it will always
seem a more hallowed shrine, and before you leave us, we will gather
here as a family, and join in the celebration of the Holy Communion."
They stood a moment hand in hand, looking into each other's eyes; and
watching them, Miss Patty's heart swelled with pardonable pride in the
two, whom her loving arms had so tenderly cradled. Pinching her
brother's hand, as she walked with him under the velvet draperies, she
whispered:
"What a noble match for both! And he's only her second cousin."
Leo's eyes were wet with tears, which Doctor Douglass ascribed to
devotional fervor; and withdrawing her hand, she opened one of the
windows, and called the doves to the stone ledge, putting them very
gently out upon the ivy wreaths that clambered up the wall, and peeped
into the chapel.
"I believe you are sacristan here?" he said, pointing to the candles
that flared, as the wind rushed in.
"Yes, here I sweep, dust, decorate daily, allowing no other touch; and
here I bring my daintiest, rarest flowers, as tribute to Him who
tapestried the earth with blossoms, and sprinkled it with
perfumes--when? Not until just before the advent of humanity, whose
material kingdom was perfected, and furnished in anticipation of his
arrival."
Extinguishing the candles, she closed the old Bible, covered it with a
square of velvet, and hung the cross of hyacinths upon the folded hands
of one of the marble angels that upheld the altar.
"Pure-handed women are natural priestesses, meet for temple
ministration; and I have no doubt your exoteric labors here, merely
typify the secret daily sweeping out of evil thoughts, the dusting away
of motes of selfishness, the decorating with noble beautiful aims, and
holy deeds, whereby you sanctify that inner shrine, your own soul."
"Praise from you means so much, that you need not stoop to flatter me.
The very vestments of you Levites should exhale infectious humility;
and I especially need exhortations against pride, my besetting sin. I
built this chapel, not because I am good, but in order to grow better.
Every dwelling has its room in which the inmates gather to eat, to
study, to work, to sleep; why not to pray, the most important privilege
of many that divide humanity from brutes? After all, the pagans were
wiser than we, and the heads of families were household priests,
setting examples of piety at every rising of the sun."
"Let us see. Greek and Roman fathers laid a cake dripping with wine, a
wreath of violets, a heart of honey-comb, a brace of doves on the home
altar, and immediately thereafter, set the example of violating every
clause in the Decalogue. Mark you, paganism drew fine lines in morals,
long anterior to the era of monotheism and of Moses, and furnished
immortal types of all the virtues; yet the excess of its religious
ceremonial, robbed it of vital fructifying energies. The frequency and
publicity of sacerdotal service, usurped the place of daily individual
piety. The tendency of all outward symbolical observances, unduly
multiplied, is to substitute mere formalism for fervor."
"Leighton, humanity craves the concrete. All the universe is God's
temple, yet the chill breath of the abstract freezes our hearts; and we
pray best in some pillared niche consecrated and set apart, I recall a
day in Umbria, when the wonderful light of sunset fell on ilex and
olive, on mountain snows, on valleys billowing between vine-mantled
hills, on creamy marble walls, on columned campaniles; and standing
there, I seemed verily to absorb, to become saturated as it were, with
the reigning essence of beauty. I walked on, a few steps, lifted a
worn, frayed leather curtain, and looked into a small gray, dingy
church, where a mist of incense blurred the lights on the ancient
altar, and the muffled roll of an organ broke into sonorous waves, like
reverberations of far-away thunder; and why was it, tell me, that the
universal glory thrilled me only as a sensuous chord of color, but in
the dark corner consecrated to the worship of our God, my soul
expanded, as if a holy finger touched it, and I fell on my knees, and
prayed? Each of us comes into this world dowered with the behest to
make desperate war against that indissoluble 'Triple Alliance, the
World, the Flesh and the Devil,' and needing all the auxiliaries
possible, I resort to conscription wherever I can recruit. Since I am
two thousand years too young to set up a statue of Hestia yonder in my
imitation prostas, I have built instead this small sacred nook for
prayer, which helps me spiritually, much as the Ulah aids Islam."
"Your oratory is lovely, and I wish its counterpart adorned every
homestead in our land; but are you quite sure that in your individual
experience you are not mistaking effect for cause? Your holy heart
demands fit shrine for--"
"I am quite sure I will not allow you to stand a moment longer on this
cold floor; and I do not intend that you shall pay me undeserved
compliments. It is derogatory to your dignity, and dangerous to my
modicum of humility. As soon as you are ready for breakfast, come to
the dining-room, where Santa Klaus left his remembrances last night. O,
Leighton! I had half a mind to hang up two stockings at uncle's bed,
for the sake of dear old lang syne. If we could only shut our eyes, and
drift back to the magical time of aprons, short clothes, and
roundabouts, when a sugar rooster with green wings and pink head, and a
doll that could open and shut her eyes, were considered more precious
than Tiffany's jewels, or Collamore's Crown Derby! Can Delmonico offer
you a repast half as appetizing as the hominy, the tea cakes, the honey
and the sweet milk which you and I used to enjoy at our supper just at
sunset, at our own little table set under the red mulberry trees in the
back yard?"
"Why should my cousin, whose present is so rose-colored, whose future
so blissful, turn to rake amid the ashes of the past?"
"Because, like Lot's wife, we are all prone to stare backward. Who
lives in the present? Do you? When we are young we pant for the future,
that pitches painted tents before us. When we are older, we live in the
past, that wraps itself in a sacred gilding glamour, and is vocal with
the happy echoes which alone survive. Far-off fields before and behind
us are so dewy, so vividly green; and the present is gray and stony,
and barren of charm, and we turn fretfully. It is part of the grim
tyranny of Time that it is tideless; that the stream bears
remorselessly on, and on, never back to the dear old spots; always on,
to lose itself in the eternal and unknown. So, to-day's Christmas lacks
the zest of its predecessors."
Leo loosened the gilded chain that looped the curtains, and as the
purple folds fell behind her, hiding the arch, Doctor Douglass said
gently:
"There is a solemn truth and wise admonition in one of Rabbi Tyra's
dicta: 'Thy yesterday is thy past; thy to-day is thy future; thy
to-morrow is a secret.'"
"Leo, here is a package and a note which arrived during service, and as
Mr. Dunbar's servant said there was no answer expected, he did not
wait."
As Miss Patty delivered the parcel to her niece, the minister walked
away to lay aside his vestments, but he noted the sudden hardening of
his cousin's face, the flush of displeasure, the haughty curl of her
lips; and on his ears fell his aunt's voice:
"You expected and waited for him at morning prayer?"
"I invited him to join us, if he felt disposed to do so."
"What possible excuse can he offer for such negligence, when he knew
that Leighton would read the service?"
An uwonted sparkle leaped into Leo's mild hazel eyes, and without
examination she handed the package and note to Justine.
"Lay them in the drawer of my writing-desk, and then call all the
servants into the dining-room. Auntie, tardy excuses must wait longer
for an audience than we waited for the writer. Come to breakfast; uncle
will be impatient, and I want to enjoy his surprise when he sees his
Santa Klaus."
She was sorely disappointed, deeply affronted by Mr. Dunbar's failure
to present himself on an occasion at which she had especially desired
his presence; and as she recalled the affectionate phraseology of her
note of invitation, her fair cheek burned with an intolerable sense of
humiliation. Was it partition, or total loss, of her precious kingdom?
In after years, she designated this Christmas as the era when the
"sceptre departed from Judah;" but putting away the chagrin, and
sealing the well of bitterness in her heart, she exchanged holiday
greetings, and proudly wore her royal robes throughout the day, holding
sternly off the spectre, which grimly bided its time--the hour of her
abdication.
Through the benevolent and compassionate efforts of Mr. and Mrs.
Singleton, some faint reflection of the outside world festivities
penetrated the dismal monotony of prison routine; and the hearts of the
inmates were softened and gladdened by kind tokens of remembrance, that
carried the thoughts of bearded convicts back to Christmas carols in
innocent youth, and to the mother's knees where prayers were lisped.
Illness had secured to Beryl immunity from contact with her comrades in
misery, and except to visit the little chapel, she never left the
sheltering walls of her small comfortless room, grateful for the
unexpected boon of silent seclusion. Her Christmas greeting had been
little Dick's sweet lips kissing her cheek, as he deposited upon her
narrow bed the black and white shawl his mother had knitted, and a box
left by Miss Gordon on the previous day, which contained half a dozen
pretty handkerchiefs with mourning borders, some delicate perfume and
soaps, toilet brushes and a sachet.
An hour later, when Mrs. Singleton and her babies had gone to spend the
day with relatives in the city, Beryl went to the window, pushed the
sash up, and listened to the ringing of the Sabbath-school bells, as
every church beyond the river called its nursery to the altar, to
celebrate the day. The metallic clangor was mellowed by distance,
rising and falling like rhythmic waves, and the faint echo, filtered
through dense pine forests behind the penitentiary, had the ghostly
iteration of the Folge Fond.
A gaunt yellow kitten, with a faded red ribbon knotted about its neck,
and vicious, amber-colored eyes that were a perpetual challenge, had
fled from the tender mercies of Dick to the city of refuge under
Beryl's cot; and community of suffering had kindled an attachment that
now prompted the lesser waif to spring into the girl's folded arms, and
rub its head against her shoulder. Mechanically Beryl's hand stroked
the creature's ear, while it purred softly under the caress; but
suddenly its back curved into an arch, the tail broadened, the purr
became a growl. Had association lifted the brute's instincts to the
plane of human antipathies?
The warden had opened the door and quickly closed it, after ushering in
a tall figure, who wore an overcoat which was buttoned from throat to
knees. At sight of Mr. Dunbar, the cat plunged to the floor, and sped
away to the darkest corner under the iron bedstead.
"Good morning. I dare not utter here the greetings of the day, because
you would construe it into a heartless mockery."
He came forward hesitatingly, and she turned swiftly away, pressing her
face against the bars of the window, waving him back.
"Why will you persist in regarding as an enemy, the one person in all
the world who is most anxious to befriend you?"
Still no answer; only the repellent gesture warning him away.
"Will you allow me, this Christmas morning, to comfort myself in some
degree, by leaving here a few flowers to brighten your desolate
surroundings?"
He held out a bouquet of rare and brilliant hothouse blossoms, whose
delicious fragrance had already pervaded the room. They stood side by
side, yet she shrank farther, and kept her face averted, shivering
perceptibly. Lifting one arm he drew down the sash to shut out the
freezing air.
"You are resolved neither to look at nor speak to me? So be it. At
least you must listen to me. You may not care to hear that I have been
absent, but perhaps it will interest you to know that I went in search
of the man for whose crime you are paying the penalty."
If he expected her to wince under the probe, her nerves were taut, and
she defied the steel; but the face she now turned fully to him was so
blanched by illness, so hopeless in its rigid calm, that he felt a keen
pain at his own heart.
"Prisoners, victims of justice, have, it seems, no privileges; else my
one request, my earnest prayer to be shielded from your presence, might
have protected me from this intrusion. Are you akin to Parrhasius that
you come to gloat over the agonies of a moral and mental vivisection?
The sight of suffering to which you have brought a helpless woman, is
scarcely the recompense I was taught to suppose agreeable to a
chivalrous Southern gentleman. If, wearing the red livery of Justice,
undue zeal for vengeance betrayed you into the fatal mistake of
trampling me into this horrible place, there might be palliation; but
for the brutal persistency with which you thrust your tormenting
presence upon me, not even heavenly charity could possibly find pardon.
Literally you are heaping insult upon awful injury. Is it a refinement
of cruelty that brings you here to watch and analyze my suffering, as a
biologist looks through lenses at an insect he empales, or Pasteur
scrutinizes the mortal throes of the victims into whose veins he has
injected poison?"
If she had drawn a lash across his face, it would not have stung more
keenly than her words, so expressive of detestation.
"Will you consider for a moment the possibility that other motives
actuate me; that ceaseless regret, remorse, if you choose, for a
terrible mistake, impels me to come here in the hope of making
reparation?"
"Such a supposition is as inconceivable as the idea of reparation. When
a reaper goes forth to his ripe harvest, his lawful labor, and wantonly
turns aside into a by-path, to try the edge of his sickle on an humble,
unoffending stalk that fights for life among the grass and weeds, and
struggles to get its head sufficiently in the sunshine to bloom--when
he cuts it off unopened, crushes it into the sod, can he make
reparation? Although it is neither bearded yellow wheat, nor yet a
black tare, it proved the temper of his blade; and all the skill, all
the science of universal humanity, cannot re-erect the stem, cannot
remove the stains, cannot unfold the bruised petals. There are wrongs
that all time will never repair. Your sword of justice needs no
whetting; one stroke has laid me low."
"I purpose to file it two-edged, in order to make no more mistakes.
Before long I shall cut down the real criminal, the principal, who
shall not escape, and for whom you shall not suffer."
"Then 'a life for a life' no longer satisfies? How many are required?
The law has need of a sacrificial stone wide as that of the Aztecs. Is
justice a'daughter of the horse-leech'?"
"So help me God--"
"Hush! Take not His name upon your lips. Men like you cannot afford to
credit the existence of a holy God. This is Christmas--at least
according to the almanac--now as a 'chivalrous Southern gentleman,'
will you grant me a very great favor if I humbly crave it? Ah, noblesse
oblige! you cannot deny me. I beg of you, then, leave me instantly;
come here no more. Never let me see your face again, or hear your
voice, except in the court-room, when I am tried for the crime which
you have told the world I committed. This boon is the sole possible
reparation left you."
She had clasped her hands so tightly, that the nails were bloodless,
and the fluttering in her white throat betrayed the throbbing of her
heart.
"You are afraid of me, because you dread my discovering your secret,
which is--"
"You have done your worst. You have locked me away from a dying mother;
disgraced an innocent life; broken a girl's pure, happy heart; what
else is there to dread? Although a bird knows full well when it has
received its death wound, instinct drives it to flutter, drag itself as
far as possible from the gaze of the sportsman, and gasp out its agony
in some lonely place."
"When I hunt birds, and a partridge droops its wings, and hovers almost
at my feet, inviting capture, I know beyond all peradventure that it is
only love's ruse; that something she holds dearer than her own life, is
thereby screened, saved. You are guilty of a great crime against
yourself, you are submitting tacitly, consenting to an awful doom, in
order to spare and protect the real murderer."
He bent closer, watching breathlessly for some change in her white
stony face; but her sad eyes met his with no wavering of the lids, and
only her delicate nostrils dilated slightly. She raised her locked
hands, rested her lips a moment on her mother's ring, as if drinking
some needed tonic, and answered in the same low, quiet tone:
"Then, prime minister of justice, set me free, and punish the guilty.
Who murdered General Darrington?"
"You have known from the beginning; and I intend to set you free, when
that cowardly miscreant has been secured. You would die to save your
lover; you, proud, brave, noble natured, would sacrifice your precious
life for that wretched, vile poltroon, who flees and leaves you to
suffer in his stead! Truly, there is no mystery so profound, so
complex, so subtle as a woman's heart. To die for his crimes, were a
happier fate than to sully your fair soul by alliance with one so
degraded; and, by the help of God, I intend to snatch you from both!"
He had put his hands for an instant upon her shoulders, and his
handsome face flushed, eloquent with the feeling that he no longer
cared to disguise, was so close to hers, that she felt his breath on
her cheek.
Swiftly, unerringly she comprehended everything; and the suddenness of
the discovery dazzled, awed her, as one might feel under the blue flash
of a dagger when thrust into one's clasp for novice fingers to feel the
edge. Was the weapon valued merely because of the possibility of
fleshing it in the heart of him who had darkened her life? Did he
understand as fully the marvellous change in the beautiful face, that
had lured him from his chapel tryst with his betrothed? He was on the
alert for signals of distress, of embarrassment, of terror; but what
meant the glad light that leaped up in her eyes, the quick flush
staining her wan cheek, the triumphant smile curving lips that a moment
before might have belonged to Guercino's Mater Dolorosa, the relaxation
of figure and features, the unmistakable expression of intense relief
that stole into the countenance?
"Will you be so good as to tell me my lover's name, and where the fox
terriers of the law unearthed him?"
"I will tell you something which you do not already know; that I have
found a clue, that I shall hunt him out, hide, crouch where he may;
that here, where he sinned, he shall expiate his crime, and that when
your lover is hung, your name, your honor, shall be vindicated. So
much, Lennox Dunbar promises you, on his honor as a gentleman."
"Words, vapid words! Empty, worthless as last year's nests. My lover,"
she laughed scornfully, "is quite safe even from your malevolence. If
indeed 'one touch of nature makes the whole world kin,' one might
expect some pity from the guild of love swains; and it augurs sadly for
Miss Gordon's future, that the spell is so utterly broken."
His dark face reddened, lowered.
"If you please, we will keep Miss Gordon's name out of the
conversation, and hereafter when--"
"Enough! I shall keep her image in my grateful heart, the few tedious
months I have to live; and there seems indeed a sort of poetic justice
in the fact that the bride you covet, has become the truest, tenderest
friend of the hapless girl whom you are prosecuting for murder."
"Beryl--"
"I forbid such insolent presumption! You shall not utter the name my
father gave me. It is holy as my baptism; it must be kept unsullied for
my lover's lips to fondle. This is your last visit here, for if you
dare to intrude again, I will demand protection from the warden. I will
bear no more."
As he looked at her, the witchery of her youthful loveliness,
heightened by the angry sparkle in her deep eyes, by the vivid
carnation of her curling lips, mastered him; and when he thought of the
brown-haired woman to whom he was pledged, he set his teeth tight, to
smother an execration. He moved toward the door, paused, and came back.
"Will it comfort you to know that I suffer even more than you do; that
I am plunged into a fiercer purgatory than that to which I have
condemned you? I am devoured by regret; but I will atone. I came here
as your friend; I can never be less, and in defiance of your hatred, I
shall prove my sincerity. Because I bemoan my rash haste, will you say
good-bye kindly? Some day, perhaps, you will understand."
He held out his hand, and his blue eyes lost their steely glitter,
filled with a prayer for pardon.
She picked up the bouquet which had fallen from the window sill to the
floor, and without hesitation put it into his fingers:
"I think I understand all that words could ever explain. My short
stream of life is very near the great ocean of rest. I have ceased to
struggle, ceased to hope; and since the end is so close, I wish no
active warfare even with those who wronged me most foully. If you will
spare me the sight of you, I will try to forget the added misery of the
visits you have forced upon me, and perhaps some of the bitterness may
die out. Take the flowers to Miss Gordon; leave no trace to remind me
of your persecution. We bear chastisement because we must, but the
sight of the rod renews the sting; so, henceforth, I hope to see you no
more. When we meet before our God, I may have a new heart, swept clean
of earthly hate, but until then--until then--"
He caught her fingers, crushed his lips against them, and walked from
the room, leaving the bouquet a shattered mass of perfume in the middle
of the floor.