Domitia

“Put down the lamp!”

She turned and faced the jailer. “Leave me alone with him. I will wake him. I know he but sleeps.”

The man hesitated.

Then Eboracus pressed forward and laid hold of the jailer and whispered – “Go without, it is the Augusta!”

The keeper of the prison started, raised his hand to his lips, bowed, set the lamp on the moist floor and drew back.

“Without! Without all!” ordered Domitia.

Then Eboracus pulled the jailer out of the cell. Euphrosyne stood doubtful whether to remain with her mistress or obey – but an impatient sign from the Empress drove her forth, and the British slave closed the door.

“He is dead,” said the jailer. “Did the Augustus desire to withdraw the order? His signet has arrived too late. The prisoner has been throttled by my sons.”

The old man and the two slaves remained for some quarter of an hour in the passage almost smothered by the smoke emitted by the torch.

From within they heard a voice – at intervals, now raised in weeping, then uttering low soothing tones, then raised in a cry as the conclamatio of hired wailers for the dead, calling on Lamia by name to return, to return, to leave the Shadowland and come back into light.

And then – a laugh.

A laugh so weird, so horrible, so unexpected, that with a thrust, without scruple, Eboracus threw open the door.

On the stone pavement sat Domitia, her hair dishevelled, and on her lap the head of the dead man. She was wiping his brow with her veil, stooping, kissing his lips, weeping, then laughing again – then pointing to purple letters, crossed L’s woven into his tunic.

Eboracus saw it all – her reason was gone.

CHAPTER XV.

DRAWING TO THE LIGHT

In the old home of Gabii, under the tender care of Euphrosyne and in the soothing company of Glyceria, little by little, stage by stage, Domitia recovered.

There was a horrible past to which no reference might be made. The true British slave, Eboracus, was ever at hand to help – when needed. Never a day, never half a day, but his honest face appeared at the door to inquire after his dear lady, and as her senses came flickering back, it was he to whom she clung to take her in his arms into the trellised walk, or when stronger to lead her where she could pick violets for Glyceria, and to pile about the feet of the little statue of the Good Shepherd. He took her a row on the lake and let her fish – he found nests of young birds and brought them to her; and all at once disclosed great powers of story-telling; he told marvellous British tales as to a little child, of the ploughing of Hu Cadarn, of Ceridwen and her cauldron. And he would sing – he fashioned himself a harp, of British shape, and sang as he accompanied himself, but his ballads were all in the Celtic tongue that Domitia could not understand – nevertheless it soothed and pleased her to listen to his music.

Longa Duilia did not visit her often. She made formal duty calls at long intervals, and as Domitia became better, these visits grew proportionately fewer.

Duilia, as she herself said, was not created to be a nurse. She knew that some were fitted by nature to attend to the sick, and all that sort of thing – but it was not her gift. Society was her sphere in which she floated and which she adorned, but she was distraught and drooping in a sick-room. She wished she had the faculty – and all that sort of thing – but all women were not cast in the same mould, run out of the same metal – and, my dear, parenthetically – some are of lead, others of Corinthian brass – and which are which it is not for me to say – she thanked the Gods it was so.

Nor did the visits and efforts to amuse, of Duilia, avail anything towards Domitia’s cure. On the contrary, she was always worse after her mother had been with her. The old lady ripped up ill-healed sores, harped on old associations, could not check her tongue from scolding.

“My poor dear child – I never made a greater blunder in my life – I, too, who have the pedigree at my finger’s ends – as to fancy that there was any connection with those Flavians. My dear! yellow hair is quite out of fashion now, quite out. Look at mine, a raven’s wing is not darker. It was through Vespasia Polla – I thought we were related – stupid that I was – it was the Vipsanians we were allied to, not those low and beggarly Vespasians. As the Gods love me, I believe Polla’s father was an army contractor. But I have made it all right. I have smudged out the line I had added to the family tree, and as for the wax heads of those Flavians, I have had them melted up. Will you believe it – I had the mask of Domitian run into a pot and that stupid Lucilla did not put a cover on it, and the rats have eaten it – eaten all the wax. I hope it has clogged their stomachs and given them indigestion. They doubtless thought it was dripping. But I really have made a most surprising discovery. I find there was an alliance with the Cocceii – most respectable family, very ancient, admirable men all – and so there is a sort of cousinship with the present admirable prince. His brother Aulus – rather old perhaps – but an estimable man – is – well – may be – in a word, I intend to give a little supper – a dainty affair – all in the best style – so sorry you can’t be there, my dear Domitia – but of course absolutely impossible. Your state of health and all that sort of thing. Don’t be surprised if you hear – but there, there – he is rather old though, for one who is only just turning off the very bloom of life and beauty.”

After such a visit and such talk the mind of Domitia was troubled for several days. She became timid, alarmed at the least noise, and distraught. But then the poor crippled woman succeeded in comforting and laying her troubles, and the painful expression faded from her face. It became placid, but always with a sadness that was inseparable from the eyes, and a tremulousness of the lips, as though a very little – a rough word or two – would dissolve her into tears.

With the spring, the growing light, the increasing warmth, the bursting life in plant and insect, she began to amend more steadily, and relapses became fewer.

One sweet spring day, when Glyceria had been carried forth into the garden, and Domitia sat on the turf near her with purple anemones in her lap, that she was binding into a garland, the paralyzed woman was startled by hearing Domitia suddenly speak of the past.

She spoke, and continued weaving the flowers, “My Glyceria, I intend this for the little temple of my father. It is all I can do for him – to give flowers where his ashes lie – but it does not content me. There were two whom I loved and looked up to as the best of men, and both are gone – gone to dust: my own dearest father, and my lover, my husband, Lamia. I cannot bear to think of them as heaps of ashes or as wandering ghosts. When that thought comes over me, I seem to be as one drowning, and then darkness is before my eyes. I cannot cry – I smother.”

“Why should you think of them as wandering ghosts or as heaps of dust?”

“I know that they are dust – I suppose they are shadows. But of anything else, all is guess-work, we know nothing – and that is so horrible. I love two only – have loved two only – and they are no more than shadows. No, no! I mean not that.” She flung her arms about Glyceria, and laid her cheek against that of the sick woman. “No, I do love you, and I love Euphrosyne and I love Eboracus. But I mean – I mean in a different manner. One was my father, and the other my husband. It is so terribly sad to think they are lost to me like yesterday or last summer.”

“They are not lost. You will see them again.”

“See my father! See my Lamia!”

“Yes – I know it will be so.”

“O, Glyceria, do not say such things. You make my heart jump. How can it be? They have been.”

“They are and will be. Death is swallowed up in Life.”

“That is impossible. Death is death and nothing more.”

Then Glyceria took the hand of Domitia, and looking into her eyes, said solemnly: “Dost thou remember having asked me about the Fish?”

“Yes – this amulet,” answered the noble lady, and she detached the cornelian from her throat, and held it in the hand not engaged by Glyceria. “Yes – I recollect – there was some mystery, but what was it?”

“The Fish is a symbol, as I said once before, and it is no amulet.”

“Of what is it the symbol?”

“Of One who died – who tasted of the bitterness of the parting of soul and body, and who went into the region of Shadows and returned – the soul to the body, and rose from the dead, and by the virtue of His resurrection gives power to all who believe in Him to rise in like manner.”

“And he could tell about what the ghosts do – how they wander?”

“I cannot say that. There would be no comfort in that. He rose to give us joy and to rob death of its terrors.”

“But what has this to do with the Fish?”

“You know what the word Fish is in Greek.”

“Very well.”

“Take each letter of that word, and each letter is the first of words that contain the very substance of the Christian belief – Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour.”

Domitia looked at the little cornelian fish; she could not understand.

“I believe that one could die and wake again. I have fainted and come round. And he might say what was in the spirit world into which he had been – but the region of ghosts is very dreary, very sad.”

“Nay, He can do more. As He rose, He can raise us to new life, and He will do it, for He is God. He made us, and He will recall us from death.”

“What – my father! Lucius! I shall see them again – not as shadows, but as they were – ?”

“Not so – not as they were, mortal; but raised to an immortal life.”