Books: At the Mercy of Tiberius

A >> Augusta Evans Wilson >> At the Mercy of Tiberius

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41

Produced by Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS

A NOVEL

By AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON

Author of "A Speckled Bird," "Infelice," "Vashti," "Beulah," "St.
Elmo," etc.

Fate steals along with silent tread,
Found oftenest in what least we dread;
Frowns in the storm with angry brow,
But in the sunshine strikes the blow.
--COWPER.

IN MEMORY OF MY MOTHER, WHO HAS ENTERED INTO REST.

AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS

CHAPTER I.

"You are obstinate and ungrateful. You would rather see me suffer
and die, than bend your stubborn pride in the effort to obtain
relief for me. You will not try to save me."

The thin, hysterically unsteady voice ended in a sob, and the frail
wasted form of the speaker leaned forward, as if the issue of life
or death hung upon an answer.

The tower clock of a neighboring church began to strike the hour of
noon, and not until the echo of the last stroke had died away, was
there a reply to the appeal.

"Mother, try to be just to me. My pride is for you, not for myself.
I shrink from seeing my mother crawl to the feet of a man, who has
disowned and spurned her; I cannot consent that she should humbly
beg for rights, so unnaturally withheld. Every instinct of my nature
revolts from the step you require of me, and I feel as if you held a
hot iron in your hand, waiting to brand me."

"Your proud sensitiveness runs in a strange groove, and it seems you
would prefer to see me a pauper in a Hospital, rather than go to
your grandfather and ask for help. Beryl, time presses, and if I die
for want of aid, you will be responsible; when it is too late, you
will reproach yourself. If I only knew where and how to reach my
dear boy, I should not importune you. Bertie would not refuse
obedience to say wishes."

The silence which followed was so prolonged that a mouse crept from
its covert in some corner of the comfortless garret room, and
nibbled at the fragments of bread scattered on the table.

Beryl stood at the dormer window, holding aside the faded blue
cotton curtain, and the mid-day glare falling upon her, showed every
curve of her tall full form; every line in the calm, pale Sibylline
face. The large steel gray eyes were shaded by drooping lids,
heavily fringed with black lashes, but when raised in a steady gaze
the pupils appeared abnormally dilated; and the delicately traced
black brows that overarched them, contrasted conspicuously with the
wealth of deep auburn hair darkened by mahogany tints, which rolled
back in shining waves from her blue veined temples. While moulding
the figure and features upon a scale almost heroic, nature had
jealously guarded the symmetry of her work, and in addition to the
perfect proportion of the statuesque outlines, had bestowed upon the
firm white flesh a gleaming smoothness, suggestive of fine grained
marble highly polished. Majesty of mien implies much, which the
comparatively short period of eighteen years rarely confers, yet
majestic most properly describes this girl, whose archetype Veleda
read runic myths to the Bructeri in the twilight of history.

Beryl crossed the room, and with her hands folded tightly together,
came to the low bed, on which lay the wreck of a once beautiful
woman, and stood for a moment silent and pre-occupied. With a sudden
gesture of surrender, she stooped her noble head, as if assuming a
yoke, and drew one long deep breath. Did some prophetic intuition
show her at that instant the Phicean Hill and its dread tenant,
which sooner or later we must all confront?

"Dear mother, I submit. Obedience to your commands certainly ought
not to lead me astray; yet I feel that I stand at the cross-roads,
longing to turn and flee from the way whither your finger points. I
have no hope of accomplishing any good, and nothing but humiliation
can result from the experiment; but I will go. Sometimes I believe;
that fate maliciously hunts up the things we most bitterly abhor,
and one by one sets them down before us--labelled Duty. When do you
wish me to start?"

"To-night, at nine o'clock. In the letter which you will take to
father, I have told him our destitution; and that the money spent
for your railway ticket has been obtained by the sacrifice of the
diamonds and pearls, that were set around my mother's picture; that
cameo, which he had cut in Rome and framed in Paris. Beryl so much
depends on the impression you make upon him, that you must guard
your manner against haughtiness. Try to be patient, my daughter, and
if he should seem harsh, do not resent his words. He is old now, and
proud and bitter, but he once had a tender love for me. I was his
idol, and when my child pleads, he will relent."

Mrs. Brentano laid her thin hot fingers on her daughter's hands,
drawing her down to the edge of the bed; and Beryl saw she was
quivering with nervous excitement.

"Compose yourself, mother, or you will be so ill that I cannot leave
you. Dr. Grantlin impressed upon us, the necessity of keeping your
nervous system quiet. Take your medicine now, and try to sleep until
I come back from Stephen & Endicott's."

"Do not go to-day."

"I must. Those porcelain types were promised for a certain day, and
they should be packed in time for the afternoon express going to
Boston."

"Beryl."

"Well, mother?"

"Come nearer to me. Give me your hand. My heart is so oppressed by
dread, that I want you to promise me something, which I fancy will
lighten my burden. Life is very uncertain, and if I should die, what
would become of my Bertie? Oh, my boy! my darling, my first born! He
is so impulsive, so headstrong; and no one but his mother could ever
excuse or forgive his waywardness. Although younger, you are in some
respects, the strongest; and I want your promise that you will
always be patient and tender with him, and that you will shield him
from evil, as I have tried to do. His conscience of course, is not
sensitive like yours--because you know, a boy's moral nature is
totally different from a girl's; and like most of his sex, Bertie
has no religious instincts bending him always in the right
direction. Women generally have to supply conscientious scruples
for men, and you can take care of your brother, if you will. You are
unusually brave and strong, Beryl, and when I am gone, you must
stand between him and trouble. My good little girl, will you?"

The large luminous eyes that rested upon the flushed face of the
invalid, filled with a mist of yearning compassionate tenderness,
and taking her mother's hands, Beryl laid the palms together, then
stooping nearer, kissed her softly.

"I think I have never lacked love for Bertie, though I may not
always have given expression to my feelings. If at times I have
deplored his reckless waywardness, and expostulated with him,
genuine affection prompted me; but I promise you now, that I will do
all a sister possibly can for a brother. Trust me, mother; and rest
in the assurance that his welfare shall be more to me than my own;
that should the necessity arise, I will stand between him and
trouble. Banish all depressing forebodings. When you are strong and
well, and when I paint my great picture, we will buy a pretty
cottage among the lilacs and roses, where birds sing all day long,
where cattle pasture in clover nooks; and then Bertie, your darling,
shall never leave you again."

"I do trust you, for your promise means more than oath and vows from
other people, and if occasion demand, I know you will guard my
Bertie, my high-strung, passionate, beautiful boy! Your pretty
cottage? Ah, child! when shall we dwell in Spain?"

"Some day, some day; only be hopeful, and let me find you better
when I return. Sleep, and dream of our pretty cottage. I must hurry
away with my pictures, for this is pay day."

Tying the strings of her hat under one ear, and covering her face
with a blue veil, Beryl took a pasteboard box from a table, on which
lay brushes and paints, and leaving the door a-jar, went down the
narrow stairs.

At the window of a small hall on the next floor, a woman sat before
her sewing-machine, bending so close to her work that she did not
see the tall form, which paused before her, until a hand was laid on
the steel plate.

"Mrs. Emmet, will you please be so good as to go up after a while,
and see if mother needs anything?"

"Certainly, Miss, if I am here, but I have some sewing to carry home
this afternoon."

"I shall not be absent more than two hours. To-night I am going
South, to attend to some business; and mother tells me you have
promised to wait upon her, and allow your daughter Maggie to sleep
on a pallet by her bed, while I am gone. I cannot tell you how
grateful I shall be for any kindness you may show her, and I wish
you would send the baby often to her room, as he is so sweet and
cunning, and his merry ways amuse her."

"Yes, I will do all I can. We poor folks who have none of this
world's goods, ought to be rich at least in sympathy and pity for
each other's suffering, for it is about all we have to share. Don't
you worry and fret, for I will see your ma has what she needs. I was
mothered by the best woman God ever made, and since she died, every
sick mother I see has a sort of claim on my heart."

Pausing an instant to adjust the tucker of her machine, Mrs. Emmet
looked up, and involuntarily the women shook hands, as if sealing a
compact.

It was a long walk to the building whither Beryl directed her steps,
and as she passed through the rear entrance of a large and
fashionable photograph establishment, she was surprised to find that
it was half-past two o'clock.

The Superintendent of the department, from whom she received her
work, was a man of middle-age, of rather stern and forbidding
aspect; and as she approached his desk, he pointed to the clock on
the mantel-piece.

"Barely time to submit those types for inspection, and have them
packed for the express going East. They are birthday gifts, and
birthdays have an awkward habit of arriving rigidly on time."

He unrolled the tissue paper, and with a magnifying glass, carefully
examined the pictures; then took from an envelope in the box, two
short pieces of hair, which he compared with the painted heads
before him.

"Beautifully done. The lace on that child's dress would bear even a
stronger lens than my glass. Here Patterson, take this box, and
letter to Mr. Endicott, and if satisfactory, carry them to the
packing counter. Shipping address is in the letter. Hurry up, my
lad. Sit down, Miss Brentano."

"Thank you, I am not tired. Mr. Mansfield, have you any good news
for me?"

"You mean those etchings; or the designs for the Christmas cards?
Have not heard a word, pro or con. Guess no news is good news; for I
notice 'rejected' work generally travels fast, to roost at home."

"I thought the awards were made last week, and that to-day you could
tell me the result."

"The awards have been made, I presume, but who owns the lucky cards
is the secret that has not yet transpired. You young people have no
respect for red tape, and methodical business routine. You want to
clap spurs on fate, and make her lower her own last record? 'Bide
awee. Bide awee'."

"Winning this prize means so much to me, that I confess I find it
very hard to be patient. Success would save me from a painful and
expensive journey, upon which I must start to-night; and therefore I
hoped so earnestly that I might receive good tidings to-day. I am
obliged to go South on an errand, which will necessitate an absence
of several days, and if you should have any news for me, keep it
until I call again. If unfavorable it would depress my mother, and
therefore I prefer you should not write, as of course she will open
any letters addressed to me. Please save all the work you can for
me, and I will come here as soon as I get back home."

"Very well. Any message, Patterson?"

"Mr. Endicott said, 'All right; first-rate;' and ordered them
shipped."

"Here is your money, Miss Brentano. Better call as early as you can,
as I guess there will be a lot of photographs ready in a few days.
Good afternoon."

"Thank you. Good-bye, sir."

From the handful of small change, she selected some pennies which
she slipped inside of her glove, and dropping the remainder into her
pocket, left the building, and walked on toward Union Square.
Absorbed in grave reflections, and oppressed by some vague
foreboding of impending ill, dim, intangible and unlocalized--she
moved slowly along the crowded sidewalk--unconscious of the curious
glances directed toward her superb form, and stately graceful
carriage, which more than one person turned and looked back to
admire, wondering when she had stepped down from some sacred
Panathenaic Frieze.

Near Madison Square, she paused before the window of a florist's,
and raising her veil, gazed longingly at the glowing mass of
blossoms, which Nineteenth Century skill and wealth in defiance of
isothermal lines, and climatic limitations force into perfection,
in, and out of season. The violet eyes and crocus fingers of Spring
smiled and quivered, at sight of the crimson rose heart, and flaming
paeony cheeks of royal Summer; and creamy and purple chrysanthemums
that quill their laces over the russet robes of Autumn, here stared
in indignant amazement, at the premature presumption of snowy regal
camellias, audaciously advancing to crown the icy brows of Winter.
All latitudes, all seasons have become bound vassals to the great
God Gold; and his necromancy furnishes with equal facility the dewy
wreaths of orange flowers that perfume the filmy veils of December
brides--and the blue bells of spicy hyacinths which ring "Rest" over
the lily pillows, set as tribute on the graves of babies, who wilt
under August suns.

From early childhood, an ardent love of beauty had characterized
this girl, whose covetous gaze wandered from a gorgeous scarlet and
gold orchid nodding in dreams of its habitat, in some vanilla
scented Brazilian jungle, to a bed of vivid green moss, where
skilful hands had grouped great drooping sprays of waxen begonias,
coral, faint pink, and ivory, all powdered with gold dust like that
which gilds the heart of water-lilies.

Such treasures were reserved for the family of Dives; and counting
her pennies, Beryl entered the store, where instantaneously the
blended breath of heliotrope, tube-rose and mignonette wafted her
across the ocean, to a white-walled fishing village on the Cornice,
whose gray rocks were kissed by the blue lips of the Mediterranean.

"What is the price of that cluster of Niphetos buds?"

"One dollar."

"And that Auratum--with a few rose geranium leaves added?"

"Seventy-five cents. You see it is wonderfully large, and the gold
bands are so very deep."

She put one hand in her pocket and fingered a silver coin, but
poverty is a grim, tyrannous stepmother to tender aestheticism, and
prudential considerations prevailed.

"Give me twenty-five cents worth of those pale blue double violets,
with a sprig of lemon verbena, and a fringe of geranium leaves."

She laid the money on the counter, and while the florist selected
and bound the blossoms into a bunch, she arrested his finishing
touch.

"Wait a moment. How much more for one Grand Duke jasmine in the
centre?"

"Ten cents, Miss."

She added the dime to the pennies she could ill afford to spare from
her small hoard, and said: "Will you be so kind as to sprinkle it? I
wish it kept fresh, for a sick lady."

Dusky shadows were gathering in the gloomy hall of the old tenement
house, when Beryl opened the door of the comfortless attic room,
where for many months she had struggled bravely to shield her mother
from the wolf, that more than once snarled across the threshold.

Mrs. Brentano was sitting in a low chair, with her elbows on her
knees, her face hidden in her palms; and in her lap lay paper and
pencil, while a sealed letter had fallen on the ground beside her.
At the sound of the opening door, she lifted her head, and tears
dripped upon the paper. In her faded flannel dressing-gown, with
tresses of black hair straggling across her shoulders, she presented
a picture of helpless mental and physical woe, which painted itself
indelibly on the panels of her daughter's heart.

"Why did you not wait until I came home? The exertion of getting up
always fatigues you."

"You staid so long--and I am so uncomfortable in that wretchedly
hard bed. What detained you?"

"I went to see the Doctor, because I am unwilling to start away,
without having asked his advice; and he has prescribed some new
medicine which you will find in this bottle. The directions are
marked on the label. Now I will put things in order, and try my
hands on that refractory bed."

"What did the Doctor say about me?"

"Nothing new; but he is confident that you can be cured in time, if
we will only be patient and obedient. He promised to see you in the
morning."

She stripped the bed of its covering, shook bolster and pillows;
turned over the mattress, and beat it vigorously; then put on fresh
sheets, and adjusted the whole comfortably.

"Now mother, turn your head, and let me comb and brush and braid all
this glossy black satin, to keep it from tangling while I am away.
What a pity you did not dower your daughter with part of it, instead
of this tawny mane of mine, which is a constant affront to my
fastidious artistic instincts. Please keep still a moment."

She unwrapped the tissue paper that covered her flowers, and holding
her hands behind her, stepped in front of the invalid.

"Dear mother, shut your eyes. There--! of what does that remind you?
The pergola--with great amber grape clusters--and white stars of
jasmine shining through the leaves? All the fragrance of Italy
sleeps in the thurible of this Grand-Duke."

"How delicious! Ah, my extravagant child! we cannot afford such
luxuries now. The perfume recalls so vividly the time when Bertie--"

A sob cut short the sentence. Beryl pinned the flowers at her
mother's throat, kissed her cheek, and kneeling before her, crossed
her arms on the invalid's lap, resting there the noble head, with
its burnished crown of reddish bronze braids.

"Mother dear, humor my childish whim. In defiance of my wishes and
judgment, and solely in obedience to your command, I am leaving you
for the first time, on a bitterly painful and humiliating mission.
To-night, let me be indeed your little girl once more. My heart
brings me to your knees, to say my prayers as of yore, and now while
I pray, lay your dear pretty hands on my head. It will seem like a
parting benediction; a veritable Nunc dimmitas."

CHAPTER II.

"I do not want a carriage. If the distance is only a mile and a
half, I can easily walk. After leaving town is there a straight
road?"

"Straight as the crow flies, when you have passed the factory, and
cemetery, and turned to the left. There is a little Branch running
at the foot of the hill, and just across it, you will see the white
palings, and the big gate with stone pillars, and two tremendous
brass dogs on top, showing their teeth and ready to spring. There's
no mistaking the place, because it is the only one left in the
country that looks like the good old times before the war; and the
Yankees would not have spared it, had it not been such comfortable
bombproof headquarters for their officers. It's our show place now,
and General Darrington keeps it up in better style, than any other
estate I know."

"Thank you. I will find it."

Beryl walked away in the direction indicated, and the agent of the
railway station, leaning against the door of the baggage room,
looked with curious scrutiny after her.

"I should like to know who she is. No ordinary person, that is
clear. Such a grand figure and walk, and such a steady look in her
big solemn eyes, as if she saw straight through a person, clothes,
flesh and all. Wonder what her business can be with the old
general?"

From early childhood Beryl had listened so intently to her mother's
glowing descriptions of the beauty and elegance of her old home "Elm
Bluff," that she soon began to identify the land-marks along the
road, alter passing the cemetery, where so many generations of
Darringtons slept in one corner, enclosed by a lofty iron railing;
exclusive in death as in life; jealously guarded and locked from
contact with the surrounding dwellers in "God's Acre."

The October day had begun quite cool and crisp, with a hint of frost
in its dewy sparkle, but as though vanquished Summer had suddenly
faced about, and charged furiously to cover her retreat, the south
wind came heavily laden with hot vapor from equatorial oceanic
caldrons; and now the afternoon sun, glowing in a cloudless sky,
shed a yellowish glare that burned and tingled like the breath of a
furnace; while along the horizon, a dim dull haze seemed blotting
out the boundary of earth and sky.

A portion of the primeval pine forest having been preserved, the
trees had attained gigantic height, thrusting their plumy heads
heavenward, as their lower limbs died; and year after year the
mellow brown carpet of reddish straw deepened, forming a soft safe
nidus for the seeds that sprang up and now gratefully embroidered it
with masses of golden rod, starry white asters, and tall, feathery
spikes of some velvety purple bloom, which looked royal by the side
of a cluster of belated evening primroses.

Pausing on the small but pretty rustic bridge, Beryl leaned against
the interlacing cedar boughs twisted into a balustrade, and looked
down at the winding stream, where the clear water showed amber hues,
flecked with glinting foam bubbles, as it lapped and gurgled, eddied
and sang, over its bed of yellow gravel. Unacquainted with "piney-
woods' branches," she was charmed by the novel golden brown wavelets
that frothed against the pillars of the bridge, and curled
caressingly about the broad emerald fronds of luxuriant ferns, which
hung Narcissus-like over their own graceful quivering images.
Profound quiet brooded in the warm, hazy air, burdened with balsamic
odors; but once a pine burr full of rich nutty mast crashed down
through dead twigs, bruising the satin petals of a primrose; and
ever and anon the oboe notes of that shy, deep throated hermit of
ravines--the russet, speckled-breasted lark--thrilled through the
woods, like antiphonal echoes in some vast, cool, columned cloister.

The perfect tranquillity of the scene soothed the travel-weary
woman, as though nestling so close to the great heart of nature, had
stilled the fierce throbbing, and banished the gloomy forebodings of
her own; and she walked on, through the iron gate, where the bronze
mastiffs glared warningly from their granite pedestal--on into the
large undulating park, which stretched away to meet the line of
primitive pines. There was no straight avenue, but a broad smooth
carriage road curved gently up a hillside, and on both margins of
the graveled way, ancient elm trees stood at regular intervals,
throwing their boughs across, to unite in lifting the superb groined
arches, whose fine tracery of sinuous lines were here and there
concealed by clustering mistletoe--and gray lichen masses--and
ornamented with bosses of velvet moss; while the venerable columnar
trunks were now and then wreathed with poison-oak vines, where red
trumpet flowers insolently blared defiance to the waxen pearls of
encroaching mistletoe.

On the other side, the grounds were studded with native growth, as
though protective forestry statutes had crossed the ocean with the
colonists, and on this billowy sea of varied foliage Autumn had set
her illuminated autograph, in the vivid scarlet of sumach and black
gum, the delicate lemon of wild cherry--the deep ochre all sprinkled
and splashed with intense crimson, of the giant oaks--the orange
glow of ancestral hickory--and the golden glory of maples, on which
the hectic fever of the dying year kindled gleams of fiery red;--
over all, a gorgeous blazonry of riotous color, toned down by the
silver gray shadows of mossy tree-trunks, and the rich, dark,
restful green of polished magnolias.

Half a dozen fine Cotswold ewes browsed on the grass, and the small
bell worn by a staid dowager tinkled musically, as she threw up her
head and watched suspiciously the figure moving under the elm
arches. Beneath the far reaching branches of a patriarchal cedar, a
small herd of Jersey calves had grouped themselves, as if posing for
Landseer or Rosa Bonheur; and one pretty fawn-colored weanling ran
across the sward to meet the stranger, bleating a welcome and
looking up, with unmistakable curiosity in its velvety, long-lashed
eyes.

As the avenue gradually climbed the ascent, the outlines of the
house became visible; a stately, typical southern mansion, like
hundreds, which formerly opened hospitably their broad mahogany
doors, and which, alas! are becoming traditional to this generation-
-obsolete as the brave chivalric, warm-hearted, open-handed, noble-
souled, refined southern gentlemen who built and owned them. No
Mansard roof here, no pseudo "Queen Anne" hybrid, with lowering,
top-heavy projections like scowling eyebrows over squinting eyes;
neither mongrel Renaissance, nor feeble, sickly, imitation
Elizabethan facades, and Tudor towers; none of the queer, composite,
freakish impertinences of architectural style, which now-a-day do
duty as the adventurous vanguard, the aesthetic vedettes "making
straight the way," for the coming cohorts of Culture.