Act 4 — Scene II.—LYRICAL DITHYRAMB

It often happens that those who try to avoid their fate run directly upon it.—Titus Livius.

The day of Maude’s introduction to the Strath arrived. The careless little lady, to whom the future state was a terrible black cloud, had taken it upon herself to fix a date for their festivities within that house; and as the day was near she deemed it necessary to attend in person and make arrangements upon the spot. Accordingly she decked herself out in a vesture of pink wrought about with divers laces, drove into Thorlund in usual state, and requisitioned the services of Dr. Berry as companion and guide.

The scholar was in a silent mood that calm sunless afternoon. His sleep had been much broken of late, and fear had crept about his bed. He was exceedingly sensitive to every outside influence, and thus had foreseen evil impending, but its nature was not revealed. The thought occurred to the rector that he had wasted his life in selfish pursuits, that punishment was in store; and therefore he was afraid.

Maude prattled joyously as she walked towards the wall, having, as she firmly believed, no sins to be sorry for. It was true she trembled when she set foot inside the garden, and caught at her companion’s arm; but Flora had told her strange stories concerning that haunted ground, and for at least the first minute she had a right to be nervous. It was natural weakness, she assured herself, but she was relieved when the sensation passed, as it did suddenly; and to show her relief she laughed, boldly and defiantly, the first foolish laugh that had sounded in that garden for many more years than any living man could look back upon.

There was a dead tree lying within the shadow of the house, its trunk mantled with moss, its few remaining branches smothered in the mud of the moat.

There Conway was seated. He looked up with vacant eyes when the visitors approached, and invited them to sit beside him and listen while he read; and when Maude demurred, after a glance at the heavy moss, he removed his cloak, a quaint blue garment lined with scarlet cloth, and spread it across the trunk. Then the little lady condescended to take her ease, and looked about with disapproval and disappointment.

“What a dirty tumbling-down old place!” she observed. “I think you ought to have the garden put into some sort of order; and as for the house it must be full of rats and spiders. I suppose it looks all right when it is lighted up, but by daylight—”

“If you please you must not say these things,” Conway interrupted.

“What!” Maude laughed. “Why, what nonsense!”

“You must remember, my friend,” said the scholar gently, “this lady has a mind superior to ours. The perfect beauty in art alone appeals to her. She finds her present environment unusual, not having been here before, but time will bring appreciation. What book is that you are holding?”

Conway held out the journal, its pages tinted lightly with ink as yellow as dead grass, and replied, “I will read to you if you will.”

“I want to see the house,” said Maude.

“Listen a few minutes to a voice from the past,” Conway entreated.

Maude, who was accustomed to having her own way, was about to reply indignantly, when she heard a rustling against the side of the house, and turning beheld Drayton gazing at her from between the creepers. The expression on his face silenced her, and the colour began to leave her cheeks. Before she was able to assert herself, the master of the Strath bent his head over the pages which contained the sad record of Winifred Hooper’s short life, and his voice came into her ears, ringing sad echoes of the past:

“I have been ill, and have not written in my book for days. I have been lying on my bed, listening to the wind in the trees, and seeing by the light of the harvest-moon forms and faces in the mirror opposite. I am well again now, and wondering why I was so foolish as to spend so long a time out of the air and sunshine, for indeed nothing ailed me except sorrow. Already it seems a long time since I went out, in a white dress, with a thick shawl about me, and my hair hanging down because I was too sick at heart to bind it, and yet it was scarce a week ago. Now we are in autumn, cold and blustering, but is it not always cold when one is sorrowing?

“How true was Mr. Spencer when he wrote, ‘for every dram of honey found in love a pound of gall doth over it redound.’ I could almost be sorry that I love you, Geoffrey. Love has visited me of late with dreams, when I would find myself struggling with my heart up a steep mountain, knowing that if I might reach the summit I should gain happiness. But at a certain point my strength would always fail. I have read that love requited gives perfect rest, but is it so? Wise Sophocles has better described it as a storm in the heart, which all must endure, even the gods. This written page can only speak. It conveys no feeling. I may write down ‘sorrow,’ but what can the word convey? A lacerated finger, a pain in the head—no more; and I may so easily, if I will, run my pen through the word, and write instead ‘love,’ and still nothing is conveyed. Love requited becomes a restless pain, when the loved one is far away. How shall lovers when separated express their feelings? It is the presence that speaks, not the tongue. One look is more eloquent than a life of letters.

“My dog has placed his paws upon my knee and looks up with soft brown eyes. He loves me, and yet speaks only with his eyes. I have seen so little of the world, and my reading of its doings come but rarely, but ’tis enough to humiliate me into a half-belief that the purest love is not in us, but in the animals. Have you watched a mother thrush feeding her fluffy chicks? Or an owl fighting a cotter for the sake of her offspring? Or a dog dying broken-hearted upon his dead master’s coat? Are we exceptions, Geoffrey, you and I? Do we love too much, and is it for that cause we are separated, least we should be too happy and thus anticipate the joys of Heaven?

“These are wandering and foolish thoughts. I should turn my mind towards the white hills and the woods, and note the beauty of the changing leaves; but, when I strive to do so, I see the wind whirling the dry foliage down the slopes and around the tombs of the old churchyard. Even when I look across the scenery it is upon the cypress and yew that my eyes are fixed. And yet so strange a creature am I that I would rather suffer than forego the privilege of having won your love.

“I keep this journal in a secret place where my father would not think to look. I must hide it now more securely than ever before, because I have done a dangerous and fearful thing. I have given information against my own father. It is horrible. It is unnatural. It may even happen that he shall be hanged through me. I shall thank Heaven for giving me liberty. I shall go forth to seek you, Geoffrey, and to find you, even if you be in the land of fables known as India. Yesterday I chanced upon Mr. Price along the highway where the road branches to Queensmore village; and when he stopped and spoke to me I was unable to contain my tongue, and before I knew had told him concerning those dark midnight rides. He heard me with amazement, and when I had done placed his hand upon the hilt of his sword, and said, ‘Very well indeed. We will see to this. A most notorious highwayman has long been the terror of these roads. To-morrow I will myself ride to town and place this information before the Sheriff, and promise that the Strath shall be soon more closely watched than you are now. Do not forget, child, that Kingsmore house stands open to give you shelter whensoever you may require it.’

“I supposed that I had passed secure from observation during that interview with worthy Mr. Price, but I was mistaken. Late last night a step came upon my passage, the door gave, and the man Reed advanced one step into my room. He was half-drunken, but I dared not order him out, menial though he be, for he is master here. He told me that my father had given orders I was to be confined in the garden, and if I ventured to disobey I would be brought back and locked within my chamber. I would not shame myself by showing weakness before him, but when I was again alone my silly heart seemed to break, and I fell upon my bed and wept a long hour. No more wanderings upon the solitary hills. My home is now my prison and my grave.

“I have not spoken to my father for more than a week. Last night, after Reed left me, I heard loud oaths and the sounds of fighting; and Deborah to-day told me she saw the squire standing in the hall, very drunk, with blood dripping from his head. There will be violent death in this house if these brawlings endure. Pray God I shall not see it. Even the sight of a mouse’s body sets me a-shivering. And so, Geoffrey, I have taken my last walk into the woods. There is a kind of wild pleasure in even that thought. When I go forth again, if I do go forth, you will be at my side, and there will be no winter any more, but I will be your summer, and you shall be my spring, and we will stand together once again where the daffodils grow.

“If it be folly to write so, it is a joy to think it. There is a book already written for each one, with the future set forth. Mine is indeed a small record, a few pages of love, and then a tomb; but yours, I like to think, is a long and noble tale, containing very much that is glorious: victories, rewards, and honours on each page, and then a sweet home and a loving wife—be very good to her for my sake—and smiling old age such as Mr. Addison has portrayed. That is how I read your future, beloved, without the aid of stars or omens. I desire for you a full and perfect life, flowing steadily on gathering strength and nobleness, like the river increasing as it nears the sea. Mine is a little impress upon the sands, which the rising tide smooths silently away.”

Dr. Berry moved suddenly forward, sweeping the book out of Conway’s hand. Maude had fainted.

Unaided the scholar carried her into the house. He placed his burden upon a sofa and fanned the white face, until a sigh escaped its lips, and the eyelids quivered. Another moment and Maude rose stiffly like a sleep-walker, stared about her with wild eyes, and said in a cold hard voice, as though in continuation of a tragic conversation which had been interrupted by her loss of consciousness, “Then there is nothing left, and I must drown myself.”

He tried to hold her, but she shook him off with a tragic gesture and moaned, “I see my fate before me. I must go to it. Do not touch me. Keep away from me. You do not know what I have done.”

She covered her face with her hands, and screamed, “I feel the eyes of the dead.”

“Dear lady,” the scholar interjected. “We are indeed surrounded by the dead, but they are invisible. Let me lead you into the garden.”

He took her hand, which was cold and lifeless, and she went with him into the open air; and there sank down in the long grass, shuddering and afraid, shrinking from his consoling touch.

“I have a right to share your suffering,” he said.

“You!” she exclaimed, beating her hands together. “What have you done? I can only sink into the stream, and die, and be forgotten. Leave me to myself. Why do you follow me? Why do you touch me? Look at your hands and see how I have soiled them.”

“Beloved sister,” spoke the tragedian. “I will never forsake you. Remember how our souls were united at the birth of song. You and I, poetess and poet, are joined together for all time by the double bond of art and of love. Your sin is mine also. If punishment must fall, let it fall on us together. It is happiness to suffer with those we love.”

“Let me show you,” she gasped, with a laugh, as unlike her own empty sound of mirth as the storm wind differs from the whirring of a wing. “Listen! I had a child, and a husband. One night I went into my daughter’s room. The child slept, one little hand reaching out towards me, her bright hair tumbling over the pillow, her little bosom rising and falling gently. I seized the pillow, and pressed it over the innocent face, and—and I stood looking down upon a little waxen face which never moved again.”

The choregus bent over her, and returned the philosophic answer which the laws of the drama required:

“It was the madness of jealousy. Under somewhat similar circumstances Medea murdered her children. It is as destiny appoints. Nature is exceedingly cruel. You were merely the instrument called upon to remove the child.”

“Hear me out,” she screamed. “I passed from that room to my husband’s side. He was a good man, noble, unselfish, and kind, having one fault only and that his love for me. I discovered him at work. He was always working, that he might provide me with those luxuries which my soul coveted. When I came near, he looked up and said, ‘Is our little girl asleep?’ And I smiled at him and said, ‘I have just come from her, and she is asleep.’ ”

“For a parallel—” the spell-bound listener interposed; but before he could say more she drowned his voice.

“Then my husband said, ‘I have been working all night, and my head pains me.’ So I took a handkerchief, and tied it round his head, and went and brought him a cup of wine. He drank it, pressing my hand, and I watched his head fall forward, and his hands shaking, and his strength going from him. And then I helped him to his room and left him, and in the night I heard him call me, but I put my fingers in my ears and turned away, and left him to die of the poison which I had given him.”

“Surely,” said the actor, “these things happened long ago. The poisoned cup and the suffocation of a sleeper are suggested to us again and again as orthodox punishments of an enemy.”

“I myself am guilty,” she raved. “With these hands I killed my husband and my child. Look at them, and see how the shadow lies upon them. The sun has not warmed them since.”

He took her hands which she had frantically extended. He lifted them and pressed first one and then the other to his lips with the adoration of a monk for holy relics. She was staring above the trees to where the vapoury hills were outlined. This was no longer the silent country dividing two lonely hamlets, but the resounding hills of despair rising above the hell of classical belief, and the autumnal fog was steam escaping from the crater beneath.

“Knowledge of the past comes without study,” the scholar proclaimed. “Who teaches the new-born child its prehensile grip? We arrive in this world well equipped. Mind is brought back from beyond, stored with knowledge. The young see visions, but as time passes, and the cares of the world enter, memory weakens, and finally there is nothing left but a craving to learn the future. Yet the past speaks in us all our lives. We return by the same way that we came. Could we look back we should understand all things; but, lest we should grow too wise, we are made to look forward, and so belief declines through half-belief and superstition to unbelief, and we return less learned than when we came. The deeds of others live on in us, and their sins are visited upon our heads.”

“You do not speak of hope,” she muttered. “You dare not.”

“Even while you speak in despair I see the light of hope dawning in your eyes,” he answered. “The husband and the child, for whom, in the tenderness of your heart, you mourn, met their death a very great time ago by other hands than these, perhaps in lofty Corinth, or amid the sands of Heliopolis, or beside the stubborn walls of Troy. Can you believe that to you alone appear these visions? There are sins upon the souls of all, there are sins upon my soul, the sins of long ago. I will speak of one. I was then, as now, a priest. It was my duty to interpret signs, and the inspired words which proceeded from the mouths of seers; but not as now to instruct the people respecting the nature of religion. Religion then consisted in the performance of certain mysteries, the secret of which was handed on from father to son, and guarded jealously from the people. The ground allotted to me was small, but beyond was a beautiful garden, wherein I would often wander to weave poetic fancies. For many years this ground was mine, but one day I came upon one who told me it was his, and that it was his intention to cultivate the ground, tear up the flowers, and remove the arbors. He was a rough unlearned man. When he closed the garden against me I hated him, and planned how I might destroy him. Night and day I pondered beside the oracle, watching the incense smoke. At length I went forth. Moonlight was upon the garden. I saw my enemy and crept upon him. I seized his neck, and strangled him. The garden was mine again. Shall I suffer for this memory? Not so. These hands are not guilty. My soul, less sentient than yours, is also less capable of suffering.”

“My friend,” she moaned. “Are you indeed my friend?”

“Your more than friend,” he rapturously replied.

“Then you will obey me. Leave me here.”

“It is my duty to watch over you. Alone you may do yourself some harm.”

“You may watch me. I will go beneath the trees.”

As the poet followed out her bidding he recited the second antistrophe of the second stasimon of the Agamemnon, that magnificent song concerning dreams and destiny in the house. Maude heard and trembled when the new understanding interpreted for her the meaning of those words. Genuine suffering was hers at last. She believed that her husband and child were dead, murdered as she had described. She saw in that enchanted atmosphere the lines of her fate written across the sky in letters of fire, even as Alcephron had read his warning in the flaming gardens of Osiris. No ray of hope lighted the way, and all that came was the dark assurance of the implacable nature of that destiny she had fought against. And the advice suggested by the sinister influence was that she should destroy herself.

Yet, in the very act of punishment, the didactic force brought out all the moral strength and latent good which might be enshrined within its victim. Thus Maude, when compelled to fight, manifested powers the existence of which she had never suspected. She resolutely refused to take the path of cowardice. She longed to live for better things. Instead of a hindrance she would become a help. But whom should she help? At that self-set question she shuddered again, knowing the resolution to have come too late, because those who had loved her were gone. Yet there were others who needed assistance, who might be led on by one so worthless as herself. She would seek them out. She would cover her pink dress with the sister’s robes of white and black, and dispense charity for her soul’s sake. So comedy and tragedy went on fighting over Maude; and the scholar looked on, chanting his lyric Greek.

Could she awake and find that horror only a dream, her husband and child yet living, what a world of happiness might still be hers. How joyously would she tread, though it were on the path of poverty, towards the life which seeks no recompense beyond a smile. Could it be that the choregus yonder had spoken the truth? Had the double crime which wrenched her heart been committed in a past age, by hands long vanished into earth?

As such questions as these quivered like meteoric flashes across her brain the heavily-charged atmosphere lifted, the mists dissolved, and through a golden fissure in a fast-floating cloud a ray of sunlight darted down the hills. A breath of wind followed, and as the influence withdrew Maude beheld Drayton standing in the grass, throwing up an apple, and catching it as it fell. It was the turn of the dramatic tide. Burlesque was laughing down the tragic frown.