At the Mercy of Tiberius Part 19

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-st.i.tched. 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 b.u.t.terfly. 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 a.n.a.logous 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 n.o.bly 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 a.s.size?

As the handkerchief swayed in the lawyer's grasp, Beryl saw the red "B.

B." like a b.l.o.o.d.y 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 fis.h.i.+ng boats rocking on blue billows, white oxen browsing amid purple iris cl.u.s.ters; 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 sc.r.a.p 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 G.o.d! No G.o.d!--to hear, to save the innocent who trusted in Him.

Oh--no G.o.d!"

Mr. Dunbar dropped the handkerchief, and as the irresistible conviction of her guilt rolled back, crus.h.i.+ng 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, s.h.i.+vered like an aspen, and he knew that for the moment she was entirely oblivious of his presence; blind to everything but the a.s.surance 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 b.u.t.terfly, 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 pa.s.sionate struggle that convulsed her, had spent itself; and as after a violent wintry tempest the gale subsides, and the snow compa.s.sionately 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sionless 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.

CHAPTER X.

When Leo Gordon celebrated her twenty-second birthday, Judge Dent, appreciating the importance of familiarizing her with the business details and technicalities of commercial usage, incident to the management of her large estate, had insisted upon terminating his guardians.h.i.+p, and transferring to her all responsibility for the future conduct of her financial affairs. New books were placed in her hands, in which he required her to keep systematically and legibly all her accounts; she drew and signed her own checks, and semi-annually furnished for his inspection a neat balance-sheet.

As adviser, and agent for the collection of dividends and rents, the change or renewal of investments, he maintained only a general supervision, and left her untrammelled the use of her income. As a dangerous innovation upon time-honored customs, which under the ante bellum regime, had kept Southern women as ignorant of practical business routine, as of the origin of the Weddas of Ceylon, Miss Patty bitterly opposed and lamented her brother's decision; dismally predicting that the result must inevitably be the transformation of their refined, delicate, clinging "Southern lady", into that abhorred monster--"a strong-minded independent business woman".

Intensely loyal to the social standard, usages and traditions of an aristocracy, that throughout the South had guarded its patrician ranks with almost Brahmin jealousy, she sternly decried every infringement of caste custom and etiquette. Nature and education had combined to deprive her of any adaptability to the new order of things; and she rejected the idea that "a lady should transact business", with the same contemptuous indignation that would have greeted a proposition to wear "machine-sewed garments", that last resort of impecunious plebeianism.

However unwelcome Leo had found this a.s.sumption of the grave duties of mature womanhood, she met the responsibility unflinchingly, and gathered very firmly the reins transferred to her fair hands for guidance. Judge Dent and Miss Patty were the last of their family, except the orphan niece who had been left to their care, and as their earthly possessions would ultimately descend to her, she had been reared in the conviction that their house was her only home.

Study and travel, potent factors in the march of progress, had so enlarged the periphery of Leo's intellectual vision, that she frequently startled her prim aunt, by the enunciation of views much too extended and cosmopolitan to fit that haughty dame's Procrustean limits of "Southern ladyhood". Blessed with a discriminating governess and chaperon, who while fostering a genuine love of the beautiful, had endeavored to guard her pupil from straying into any of those fas.h.i.+onable "art crazes", which in their ephemeral exaggeration approach caricatures of aestheticism, Leo became deeply imbued with the spirit of cla.s.sic literature and art; and grew especially fond of the study of Greek and Roman architecture.

Believing that the similarity of climate in her native State, justified the revival of an archaic style of building, she ardently desired and finally obtained her uncle's consent to the erection (as an addition to the Dent mansion), of a suite of rooms, designed in accordance with her taste, and for her own occupancy. Hampered by no prudential economic considerations, and fearless of criticism as regarded archaeological anachronisms, Leo allowed herself a wide-eyed eclecticism, that resulted in a thoroughly composite structure, eminently satisfactory at least to its fastidious owner. A single story in height, it contained only four rooms, and on a reduced scale resembled the typical house of Pansa, except that the flat roof rose in the center to a dome.

Const.i.tuting a western wing of the old brick mansion which it adjoined, the entrance fronting north, opened from a portico with cl.u.s.tered columns, into a square vestibule; which led directly to a large, octagonal atrium, surrounded by lofty fluted pillars with foliated capitals that supported the arched and frescoed ceiling. In the centre, a circular impluvium was sunk in the marble paved floor, where in summer a jet of spray sprang from the water on whose surface lily pads floated; and in winter, shelves were inserted, which held blooming pot plants, that were arranged in the form of a pyramid. The dome overarching this, was divided into three sections; the lower frescoed, the one above it filled with Etruscan designs in stained gla.s.s; the upper, formed of white ground gla.s.s sprinkled with gilt stars representing constellations, was so constructed, that it could be opened outward in panels, and thus admit the fresh air.

On the east side of this atrium, Leo's bed-room connected with that occupied by Miss Patty in the old house; and opposite, on the west, was a large square Pompeian library, with dark red dado, daintily frescoed panels, and richly tinted glowing frieze. At the end of this apartment, and concealed by purple velvet curtains lined with rose silk, an arch opened into a small semi-circular chapel or oratory, lighted by stained gla.s.s windows, whose brilliant hues fell on a marble altar upheld by two kneeling figures; and here lay the family Bible of Leo's great-grandfather, Duncan Gordon, with tall bronze candelabra on each side, holding wax candles. At the right of two marble steps that led to the altar, was spread a rug, and upon this stood an ebony reading-desk where a prayer-book rested. Filling a niche in the wall on the left side, the gilded pipes of an organ rose to meet a marble console that supported a Greek cross.

In order to secure an un.o.bstructed vista from the front door, that portion of the building which corresponded to the ancient tablinum, was used merely as an aviary, where handsome bra.s.s cages of various shapes showed through their burnished wires snowy c.o.c.katoos, gaudy paroquets, green and gold canaries, flaming red and vivid blue birds, and one huge white owl, whose favorite perch when allowed his freedom, was a bronze Pallas on a projecting bracket.

Conspicuous among these, was a peculiar cage made of tortoise sh.e.l.l, ivory and silver wire, which Leo had a.s.signed to a scarlet-crested, crimson-throated Australian c.o.c.katoo. Beyond this undraped rear vestibule stretched the peristyle, a parallelogram, surrounded by a lofty colonnade. The centre of this s.p.a.ce was adorned by a rockery whence a fountain rose; flower beds of brilliant annuals and coleus encircled it like a mosaic, and the ground was studded with orange and lemon trees, banana and pineapple plants; while at the farther side delicate exotic grape vines were trained from column to column.

In summer this beautiful court was entirely open to the sky, but at the approach of winter a movable framework of iron pillars was erected, which supported a gla.s.s roof, that sloped southward, and garnered heat and suns.h.i.+ne. Neither chimneys nor fireplaces were visible, but a hidden furnace thoroughly warmed the entire house, and in each apartment the registers represented braziers of cla.s.sic design.

Except for the external entrances, doors had been abolished; portieres of plush, satin, and Oriental silk closed all openings in winter; and during long sultry Southern summers were replaced by draperies of lace, and wicker-work screens where growing ivy and smilax trained their cool green leaves, and graceful tendrils. Wooden floors had accompanied the doors to Coventry; and everywhere squares of marble, and lemon and blue tiles showed s.h.i.+mmering surfaces between the costly rugs, and fur robes scattered lavishly about the rooms. Surrounded by a gilded wreath of olive leaves, and incised on an architrave fronting the vestibule, the golden "Salve" greeted visitors; just beneath it, on an antique shaped table of topaz-veined onyx, stood a Vulci black bowl or vase, decorated in vermilion with Baccha.n.a.l figures; and this Leo filled in summer with creamy roses, in winter, with camellias. Where the shrines and Lares stood in ancient houses, a square, burnished copper pedestal fas.h.i.+oned like an altar had been placed, and upon it rose from a bed of carved lilies, a copy in white marble of Palmer's "Faith".

From the front portico, one could look through the vestibule, the atrium, the aviary, and on into the peristyle, where among vine branches and lemon boughs, the vista was closed by a flight of stone steps with carved cedar bal.u.s.trade, leading up to the flat roof, where it sometimes pleased the mistress to take her tea, or watch the sunset.

In selecting and ordering designs for the furniture, a strict adherence to archaic types had been observed; hence the couches, divans, chairs, and tables, the pottery and bric-a-brac, the mirrors and draperies, were severely cla.s.sic.