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Title: The libertine; vol. 3 [of 4]
Author: Charlotte Dacre
Release date: August 22, 2026 [eBook #79427]
Language: English
Original publication: London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1807
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79427
Credits: Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIBERTINE; VOL. 3 [OF 4] ***
THE
LIBERTINE.
IN FOUR VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
W. Flint, Printer,
Old Bailey.
THE
LIBERTINE,
BY
CHARLOTTE DACRE,
BETTER KNOWN AS
ROSA MATILDA.
AUTHOR OF
_Hours of Solitude_, _Nun of St. Omer’s_, _Zofloya_, _&c._
IN FOUR VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
If one by one you wedded all the world,
Or from the all that are, took something good
To make a perfect woman; she you kill’d
Would be unparallel’d.
SHAKESPEARE.
... Are not these strange self delusions, and yet attested
by common experience?
SOUTH.
_LONDON_:
PRINTED FOR T. CADELL AND W. DAVIES, STRAND.
1807.
THE
LIBERTINE.
CHAP. XVIII.
Time crept on, and all hope of discovering their child faded gradually
and sorrowfully from the minds of the parents. Felix had attained his
tenth year, and on him alone rested now their fond expectations. But the
mind of the mother would often revert with a sigh of bitter regret to
the probable fate of her beloved Agnes, who would now have been for her
so sweet a companion, and filled up with delight many moments that were
necessarily devoted to solitude; for Felix was more the companion of
his father than her, and though a lovely and engaging youth, he needed
that urbanity, softness, and docility of manner which fondly, she
imagined in the gentle creature she had lost. The idol of his father, it
was not unfrequently that she beheld insufficient her mild and rational
controul to restrain the impetuosity of his manners, the wildness, and
often serious impropriety of his conduct. But Angelo, who contended that
all this was but the ardour and spirit of youth, and that it would yield
to the soberer influence of judgment and increase of years, loved not
that she should check the boy; for in the fulness of a proud self-love
he would remember, that his son resembled what he himself had been at
his age.
Thus by the mismanagement, and oftentimes imprudent interference of
Angelo in his presence, many errors were suffered to take deep and
fatal root in the heart of Felix, which the anxious vigilance and
salutary reproofs of his mother might have timely extirpated, but would
at all events have rendered of little influence in his future general
character. Still she entertained hopes that unremitting perseverance on
her side, and the ultimate prevalence of increasing reason over early
folly, on his, would correct the imperfections of his present
disposition, and render him all that her anxious love desired to behold
him as a man.
The hopes of Gabrielle were however doomed to be frustrated, for the
conduct of Felix, his inattention to her counsels, and disobedience of
her commands, originated in a source deeper far than any of which she
was aware; for while she considered as the wandering of the head
merely, the errors of her child, they sprang from a heart corrupted and
contaminated by the baneful influence of surrounding circumstance.
In the domestic establishment of Angelo, was a female named Milborough;
she had been originally hired to attend exclusively upon the infant
Felix, and to keep a guard over him, excepting when under the eyes of
his parents. As Felix grew older however, and required no longer the
vigilant care of a nurse, Gabrielle conceiving a regard for the woman on
account of the attention she considered her to have bestowed upon her
charge, retained her still in the family to officiate as a personal
attendant upon herself. Nothing could be more gentle, modest, and
unassuming than the general conduct of Milborough, nothing more
treacherous, base, and diabolical than her heart: nothing could equal
the propriety of her deportment but the depravity of her principles; nor
any thing the conciliating anxiety she evinced to obey the smallest of
Gabrielle’s desires, but the secret, malign, and unprovoked hatred which
she bore her.
Possessed of a profligate intriguing spirit, she veiled it with the
profoundest art, and under the guise of an inoffensive placidity,
concealed a mercenary and deceitful soul; all she said, and all she did,
bore the stamp of candour and disinterestedness; her countenance was
never ruffled by impatience at reproof, she heard all with submission,
but felt with rancour, and revenged with bitterness.
Soon after her introduction to the family, by an unfortunate accident,
but one too easy of occurrence in a situation not strictly conformable
to propriety and virtue, this woman had discovered that marriage was not
the tie which bound in a union apparently so indissoluble those persons
who gave her bread; and far from closing her eyes and ears, as duty
dictated to a menial like herself, against a secret thus betrayed, she
spared no opportunity of endeavouring to confirm, by prying curiosity,
and unobserved remark, the truth of what at first had been but vaguely
made known to her. She soon gained, or conceived that she did, proof
sufficient to convince her. From that moment, those bad principles with
which her soul was imbued were called into action; she no longer bore
towards Gabrielle the smallest respect, viewing her no more in the light
of a superior, though she still appeared to do so; for it is an
invariable maxim with vulgar minds, when they discover aught amiss in
those above them, immediately to place themselves upon a level with
them, to consider all inequality at an end, and establish their own
claims to distinction, merely upon a comparative view with their errors.
Thus was it with Milborough, who not taking into her narrow conception
the superior birth, merits, or high qualities of Gabrielle, saw simply
an unjust difference in their present stations, and imagined when she
beheld her unpolished figure in the glass, that _her_ title to rank and
opulence was in no way inferior to that of her mistress. This ignorant
and presumptuous idea laid the foundation of a train of evils at once
mighty and incalculable.
The commands of Gabrielle, now that she beheld her in a light so
humiliated, no more enforced obedience from her as a duty; consequently
she obeyed reluctantly, for they galled and offended her; and she made
herself amends for her condescension by every means in her power. Being
from her situation (which her interest would not permit her to resign)
so placed as to be necessarily subordinate to Gabrielle, she from first
thinking herself degraded by obeying her, ultimately hated her who
commanded; yet this low born upstart presumed to consider _Gabrielle_ a
mark for envy, therefore for hatred; and in proportion as her high and
superior virtues manifested themselves, supported by a steady dignity,
the result of conscious nobility of mind, as well as birth, the hatred
of this reptile increased with every foul aggravation which low minded
malice could conceive, venting itself in secret, unsuspected, but
dreadful mischief.
Though at the period of her entering the service of Angelo, Felix
tenderly loved his mother, yet Milborough, from being constantly with
him, acquired a sort of _second love_ in his heart, which soon usurped
the place of the first,--an undue and irrational influence on his mind
likewise, such as vulgar cunning suggests, may be easiest obtained over
youth and inexperience. It was by yielding ever to his follies and
caprices, acquiescing with a smile in his wildest sallies; by
indiscriminate indulgence, improper temptations to disobey the anxious
or rational injunctions of his mother; flattery, inducing him to commit
faults for the purpose of raising her consequence in his eyes by
concealing them, and gaining his confidence and affection through the
channel of a perverted gratitude.
Felix grew fond of his nurse; his boyish mind preferred her society to
that of his mother, who content to see him happy, was never displeased
at his anxiety to return to Milborough after being a short time absent
from her; and from being merely induced to think from that circumstance
that she treated the boy with kindness, continually bestowed on her
marks of her gratitude and satisfaction; thus unconsciously cherishing a
snake, who was stinging her in the tenderest point. When Felix, still
very young, had committed one day a slight error for which Gabrielle
considered it necessary to reprove him, but did it in the mildest and
most gentle manner, Felix burst into tears, and sought his flattering
nurse, who perceiving her pretended favourite weeping bitterly, took him
immediately in her arms, and inquired the cause of his distress. Felix,
certain of being pitied and soothed, informed her, while his tears
redoubled; when giving vent to her secret malice, Milborough exclaimed,
“Indeed!--but _she_ has no right to be angry with you, Felix.”
“Oh yes,” cried the boy, instantly checking his tears, and looking up in
her face, struck as it appeared by so base an insinuation.--“Certainly
my mother has a right to be angry with me.”
“Indeed she has not, Felix,” answered Milborough, with a lip of
contempt, “your father has a right, but she is _nobody_.”
“Nobody! Milborough,” cried Felix, looking at her indignantly,--“my
mother nobody? I do not understand you,” and, instinctively as it were,
he withdrew her arm from round his neck.
“Why, Felix, you are too young to understand indeed, so let us say no
more about it.”
But the curiosity of youth is not so easily appeased; this the artful
Milborough reckoned on, and when a few minutes after Felix required an
explanation of what she had meant by saying his mother was “nobody,” her
eyes sparkled with the exultation of malice, and her base heart rejoiced
at the thought of the revenge she was taking upon the excellence, and
imagined happiness of Gabrielle, which she died to frustrate.
“Why then,” with pretended hesitation she replied--“I will tell
you,--but first promise me never to mention it to any one, but above
all, not to your mother.”
“Oh, but my mother says I must never have any secrets from her,”
answered Felix.
“Pho, nonsense,” returned Milborough, putting her arm round him again,
which action, his curiosity now on the stretch, he did not again
repulse.--“Now listen.”
The little Felix opened his ears to drink in the base pernicious
communications of the abandoned Milborough; and she availing herself of
the deep attention with which he listened, made as clear as she possibly
could to his childish capacity, that there was a certain ceremony called
marriage, which if not duly and regularly performed between two persons
deciding to live together, the female lost all consequence in society,
and was regarded as an unfit companion for other females, honourably
married; that the children, likewise, were never considered by the world
as entitled to any distinction, but on the contrary; and that therefore
they were not obliged to honour or obey a mother whom no one honoured or
esteemed, and who had so little considered in her conduct their future
welfare or estimation in society. “Thus, Felix, you perceive I was
right,” she concluded, “in saying that your mother was nobody.”
Felix was silent, his mind was confused, he felt something like painful
conviction, and this conversation made a deep impression. Above all, he
remembered a sensation of uneasiness which he had experienced at that
part of Milborough’s discourse wherein she had made an observation
respecting the opinion which the world entertained of children situated
as he now understood himself to be.
A frequent recurrence to that most infamous insinuation produced a
baleful effect upon his character: he endeavoured, child as he was, to
divest himself of all pride, conceiving from what Milborough had said,
he had no right to possess any, and in so doing unfortunately divested
himself of _that_ pride which is the foundation of every virtue, the
pride of principle. As he grew older, the destructive effect of this
idea produced daily more lamentable consequences. He lost all self
respect, all solicitude for proper conduct; he said to himself, “However
good, honourable, or virtuous I may be, no one will look at me, or think
me worthy notice.” Thus is it but too true, that however injurious may
be an excess of pride, to be wholly devoid of it is to be devoid of
every virtue; for when we despise ourselves, we are indifferent to the
approbation of others, to the noble distinction of superior worth, and
all that gives consideration to the man.
Unhappily for Gabrielle, she knew not the corruption that had been
engendered in the heart of her son; she knew not the dreadful sentiments
that there had taken root, or her anxious counsels, her just and
animated representation of that wherein true virtue and dignity consist,
depending solely on the mind, and on the heart, towering singly and
unaided, neither to be raised or depreciated by surrounding
circumstances, but making in itself the nobility of the individual; had
she but been aware, she might have destroyed the evil in its germ, and
applied the remedy ere it had proved in vain.
Her who had been the nurse of his childhood, as Felix advanced to
maturer years became the friend, the adviser of his youth, the faithful
depositary, and often partaker of his secret follies and intentions; he
now understood perfectly, from the frequent questions he had proposed to
Milborough, and which she ever answered with unwearied readiness; from
combining in his naturally intelligent mind such ideas as presented
themselves, from observation, or an inquisitiveness of spirit, all which
at first he had found it difficult to comprehend. From the joint
operation of these circumstances his respect for his mother gradually
decreased; with it decreased his love likewise, and involved with the
dereliction the finer and better qualities of his soul; for filial love
and respect cannot causelessly quit the young mind without depriving it
of some of its best and brightest virtues.
The abandoned Milborough rejoiced in the train of mischief she was
secretly laying, which in time she hoped to see explode, causing
dreadful and unspeakable havoc. The boyish partiality of Felix for her
increased rather than diminished with his years--she was so gentle, so
yielding, so ever ready to acquiesce in all his wishes however difficult
to be atchieved; she appeared too so happy when she could compass for
him any point he desired, so delighted to favour or oblige him. Being
frequently the companion of his father, he would sometimes in the
plenitude of youthful exhiliration speak of her in terms of highest
praise. Angelo would listen with a smile; he was not surprised at the
fondness of a young boy for the woman who had been a kind nurse to him
in his childhood, but he was wholly incompetent to judge of the merits
of Milborough; she did not come within his sphere, and he had scarcely
ever bestowed on her a moment’s attention. Induced at length by the
reiterated observations of the youth in her favour, he one morning, when
she entered the room where he was sitting with Gabrielle, raised
mechanically his eyes to her face.--He beheld there an expression of
modesty and ingenuousness which pleased him, and sufficient attraction
to obviate the charge of ugliness, an attraction which, though devoid of
youth or beauty, boasted a sort of charm independent of either.
Felix, who had remarked with pleasure that his father had noticed
Milborough, seized the first opportunity of their being alone to ask
him if he did not think Milborough handsome.
“Not particularly so,” was the reply of Angelo; “but since she has
deported herself so well towards you, tell her from me, that whenever
she chuses to marry, I will give her a sufficient portion to ensure the
good-will of her husband.”
Felix, delighted at the idea of having so pleasing a communication to
make to Milborough, and hoping that it would infinitely raise his
consequence with her, hastened when he left his father to impart it to
her. Scarce had Milborough heard him to an end, ere an idea flashed
across her mind which tinged her cheek with the fire of exultation; she
beheld in the munificent promise of Angelo, not merely what it proposed,
but far more that it implied; disguising her joy however, she with an
apparent modesty and humility entreated Felix to return her most
grateful thanks to her lord, but with an air of embarrassment added,
that she had no intention of ever marrying.
That night, sleep was a stranger to the eyes of Milborough; visions of
aspiring hope floated before her; extravagant presumptuous calculations
filled her brain, and she wondered at her dulness in having so long
failed to see the road which lay most open for her to opulence and
grandeur, but above all, to compass that destruction in which
unceasingly she had longed to involve her envied hated mistress. The
casual notice of Angelo, and the intimation sent her by him through
Felix, formed the basis of her present golden dreams. Since he had
deigned to listen to her praises, and so far acquiesced in their justice
as to send her a special embassy proving his disposition in her favour,
what might she not in reason expect? Well she knew she could not
appreciate too highly the estimation in which she was held by Felix. He
possessed an unlimited influence over his father, it was only therefore
to render him voluntarily or involuntarily, no matter which, the medium
of introducing her more fully to the observation of Angelo, and her most
sanguine anticipations might be easily fulfilled.
Pursuant to this idea, she redoubled her attention towards the son, and
threw herself, as much as her department in the family would allow,
without suspicion, in the way of the father; she endeavoured by every
artifice compleatly to estrange the affections of Felix from his
mother, and to court him from her society to her own. For this purpose
she filled her apartment with entertainment for him, drawing materials,
with subjects more amusing than instructive, from which to copy, books,
pernicious rather than edifying, musical instruments and songs that she
accompanied him with, calculated from their tendency to corrupt the
heart and mislead the imagination. Milborough, who had not an
indifferent voice, one evening carelessly and with a smile observed to
Felix, after concluding a song, “Do you not think, Felix, that my lord
would like to hear some of our songs?”
“I am certain he would,” answered Felix eagerly, “but you would not sing
before my mother, Milborough.”
“How simple you are,” returned Milborough; “certainly not.”
“Shall I ask my father then to come and hear you?” said Felix.
“Oh, not for the world,” returned Milborough laughing, “I am certain I
could not sing a note in the presence of my lord.”
“Well, but if you did not see him?” cried Felix, smiling archly and
looking at Milborough.
“Oh, perhaps I might then,” answered the artful Milborough, catching his
idea.
“To-morrow evening I will bring my father to hear you, as if by
accident, and he shall remain in the next room to you.”
“But he must not know,” interposed Milborough, “that I have any
knowledge of his being there.”
“He shall not, indeed.”
“Well, upon those terms,” said Milborough with a musing air, but
secretly rejoiced, and desiring to have the air of submitting to an
arrangement of which she had been the first instigator, “upon those
terms I think I have no objection.”
“It is decided,” cried Felix: “now let us have another song, and then I
must leave you.”
The next evening Felix proposed to his father to be an unseen auditor of
Milborough’s singing. Angelo, who had not the least anxiety to hear such
vulgar harmony as he conceived hers must be, at first directly refused,
but yielding to the entreaty of his son, he at length consented, and
promised, laughing, that he would accompany him to the room adjoining
hers for that purpose, at the time mutually agreed on. When the hour
arrived, Angelo had forgotten his promise, but at the vexed remonstrance
of the impetuous youth, he yielded acquiescence, and followed him to the
appointed spot. A small glass window fixed in the door which separated
the two rooms, was usually covered with a curtain, but the scheming
Milborough, whose plan was artfully laid, had drawn this curtain the
least degree possible aside, yet sufficiently, while it appeared the
work of accident, to give an insight into the chamber. There accurately
drest, that is modestly, though to the highest advantage, she awaited
the moment when by a little signal previously agreed on between her and
Felix, she should be informed of their entrance, and know when to begin
her song. No sooner had she received from the unthinking boy the
necessary hint, than she commenced by carelessly humming an air, not
without taste, which at intervals she interrupted, as more intent upon
her employment, which was embroidering flowers in a frame; then
gradually she entered on the song of the air she had been humming. The
subject was simply interesting and artfully chosen. It related to the
concealed love of a maid in lowly station for a lord of high rank, and
it painted her secret anguish in mournful expression, and melancholy
tone, to which she managed to give peculiar effect, and concluded with
the death of the maid from her hopeless passion, in consequence of the
marriage of her lover with another.
While she sang, so apparently unconscious that any human being was nigh,
Angelo, whose expectations she had completely surpassed, for he had
attributed the praises of Felix merely to his want of taste in the
science, found himself first involuntarily drawn towards the artfully
contrived aperture, better to catch the notes of her voice, and next
rivetted there, by the well arranged figure and pleasing countenance
which displayed itself to his view. He continued gazing near a minute
after the song was ended, and was only roused from his intentness by the
gentle voice of Felix, who pulling him by the arm, in the spirit of
boyish mischief whispered, “Let us break suddenly in upon Milborough, my
lord, and tell her we have heard her song,--she will look so frightened
and confused!”
“No, no, Felix,” replied Angelo, laughing, “what folly!”
“Oh, to oblige me, my lord--to oblige me, my dear father; do not refuse,
I entreat you,” said Felix; and dragging his father forward, half
reluctant, half careless, he with his foot burst open the door which led
into her room, and both stood suddenly before her, Felix laughing
immoderately at her confusion and alarm, so well affected as to deceive
even himself. But since Angelo had for the first time entered her
apartment, she was desirous to avail herself of the auspicious moment.
On their sudden entrance the frame had fallen from her hand, she started
up, and appeared in the greatest perturbation; now she trembled
violently, seeming unable to sustain herself, attempted to catch at a
chair for support, and failing, staggered and fell to the ground.
Angelo, somewhat flushed with wine, had given inconsiderately into the
frolic of his son; but now seriously sorry for the terror he had
occasioned a weak and timid female, he instinctively attempted to raise
her from the ground, in which Felix, no longer gay and laughing, most
earnestly assisted. At length Milborough appeared to recover, she was
raised from the ground, but seeming suddenly to perceive that it was the
hand of Angelo which held hers, to assist her, she swiftly withdrew it
with a slight exclamation of alarm, and glanced on him a look, in which
love struggling with apprehension, and pleasure with trembling timidity,
were artfully contrasted. Angelo observed the expressive look; though
past his youthful day, his natural character remained unchanged, at
least in principle; ever open in a degree to the blandishments of women,
he had not yet learnt to contemn them, and his vanity was still
susceptible of being flattered by their admiration, as his heart to be
influenced by their charms.
Thus Milborough, whose look had penetrated immediately to his self-love,
began to wear additional attractions in his eyes; he now fancied there
was meaning in the expression of her song, and while vanity faintly
whispered that she dared to entertain an affection for him, self-love
extenuated her presumption, and bade him pity, rather than despise her.
Honour and propriety would have dictated to Angelo at this imagined
discovery, an unvarying countenance, excepting of increased coolness,
and a speedy departure from her chamber, which if not expressive of his
disgust, must have convinced her at least of the total impossibility of
his supposing that _such_ a look directed to _him_, could contain the
slightest meaning. But no, true to the latent principles of his nature,
of a character that wanted energy, firmness, and decision, that was ever
acted on by the influence of circumstance, or the moment, and was devoid
of the dignified fortitude which can resist adventitious temptation, he
suffered _more_ softness to be visible in his looks, more interest in
the tone of his voice, more tenderness in the assistance he gave; but
all this was urged by _pity_, and by the delicacy which a woman commands
from a man, who discovers that she unhappily cherishes an imprudent
passion for him. Instead of hastening from her room, as soon as
possible, his stay was prolonged; nor did he quit her till he beheld her
perfectly recovered, and then with the hope, expressed in the gentlest
accents, that by the following day she would suffer no ill effects from
the alarm she had experienced. Milborough seeming overpowered with
confusion, scarcely lifted her eyes from the ground; and when Angelo
rose for the purpose of departing, she arose likewise, for he had
compelled her to sit in his presence, and seemed incapable, from a sense
of the honour conferred upon her, of returning her faltering
acknowledgments for such condescension.
CHAPTER XIX.
Who would not have believed, after so long a period of constancy and
perseverance in the right path, that the follies of Angelo were for ever
at an end? Far otherwise; the errors of the libertine are too frequently
so imbued with the character, as to be invincible to the operation of
time, experience, conscience, or reason, and to end but with the life of
the wretched being they tyrannize over.
And on what had depended hitherto the virtue of Angelo? on what the
peace of the unhappy Gabrielle? On accident alone; no meteor presenting
itself to his eyes, no attraction offering, he walked directly forward,
nothing occurring to lead him astray; he sought not temptation, if it
sought not him, but if it did he became its slave. Ill fated Gabrielle,
rejoice in the slender portion of happiness thou hast experienced, dream
it o’er in imagination, for never more shalt thou experience its
reality.
Novelty, in the form of Milborough, presented itself to Angelo, and he
was incapable of resisting the attraction: it is not _age_ that checks
the career of folly in the libertine--no, his follies then became
_vices_, they degenerate into depravity; his feelings become vitiated,
and he possesses no longer that choice delicacy of taste attendant on
the pride of youth. Thus, from having been in an unguarded moment, by
the influence of an idle boy, induced to pay a slight share of attention
to a presumptuous menial, he found himself involuntarily interested,
drawn frequently upon various pretexts to her apartment, and each time
of seeing her, that she occupied, when out of her presence, an increased
portion of his thoughts. Her artful demeanour tended greatly to
strengthen those at first vague impressions; in it he saw, or fancied
that he saw, a deep concealed love struggling with the profoundest
respect, and most invincible timidity. If he entered suddenly, she
started, blushed, and trembled, forgot her employment, hesitated, and
knew not whether to stand or sit. If she chanced to meet him, which she
likewise endeavoured to do as frequently as possible, she stood still,
seeming undecided from confusion whether to pass him, or turn back.
Angelo was convinced by these appearances, and while he compassionated
an unhappy love, he involuntarily thought with tenderness of her who
loved.
Mean time the conduct of Milborough towards Gabrielle was widely
different from the respect she evinced for Angelo, and from what it had
formerly been to herself; it was such precisely as a vulgar mind,
impudently elate in anticipated good fortune, must manifest to one,
whose high superiority it had presumed to envy. Gabrielle, mild as she
was, became incensed at this change in the manners of a domestic, who
had so much reason to persevere in a proper line of conduct, and she
taxed her with her presumption in terms, for her, unusually severe. At
her just reproof, the countenance of Milborough wore an audacious
expression, between a sneer and a smile of triumph, and she deigned not
to utter a sentence in mitigation of her faults.
It was the aim of this intriguing woman to bring as early as possible
her plans to bear; she desired to provoke Gabrielle to dismiss her from
her service, and while, to induce this result, she sought by the most
unqualified insolence and offensive demeanour to try her patience beyond
endurance, she caused Felix to represent to his father that she felt
such symptoms of indisposition, as announced premature decay; at the
same time artfully intimating to the youth that she wished her
communications to be kept secret from all but himself, lest Gabrielle,
who had become less kind to her than formerly, should insist on her
removal; and then, with false tears, lamenting death only as it would
deprive her of the happiness of seeing her dear Felix a man.
This was sufficient to hasten Felix, who for this worthless being
possessed an affection far greater than for his amiable mother, to
disclose to his father her most important secret. Angelo, with a
momentary flutter at his heart, saw it was for him she pined--he felt
interested; and half determined in his mind, that if Gabrielle, who was
incapable of so unworthy an act, should dismiss the poor creature on
account of ill health, to make it a point to do all that _humanity_
required of him to promote her comfort. Thus did he seek ever to blind
himself to the real motives that in certain particulars actuated his
conduct. He formed immediately a pretext for paying her a visit, and in
the plenitude of a deceiving self-love, he conceived, on regarding her,
that her cheek looked paler, and her form reduced. This idea gave an
additional victory to that slow undermining power she was gaining over
his heart, and caused him, when he discovered the increasing interest
which he felt for her, to excuse himself with the vain reflection, that
she was a female formed for a higher station than the one in which
fortune had placed her.
While her mean and treacherous influence was thus gaining ground in the
mind of Angelo, her conduct became daily more insufferable to the pride
and feelings of Gabrielle. She at length determined to dismiss her, but
in consequence of her having been, as she believed, a tender nurse to
Felix, she decided, first to inform Angelo of the various causes she had
received from her of provocation, and to ask his concurrence in her
intention. Accordingly she took the first opportunity of introducing
the subject, expressing at the same time her regret that the ingratitude
of the woman at so late a period of her service, should have induced her
reluctantly to entertain an ill opinion of her heart. Ere she had half
concluded, Angelo interrupted her, and while his conscience smote him
for the thought he cherished, he hastily exclaimed, “Why not at once
discard her?”
“I intended to have informed you such was my wish,” observed Gabrielle.
“Why ask my concurrence, upon such a trifle,” he faltered with a slight
blush:--“do it--do it this instant, if you choose.”
Gabrielle, who could see in this nothing but most ready acquiescence in
her proposal, (for though she had sometimes been obliged to think
_severely_ of Angelo, she had never yet thought _humbly_ of him,)
dropped the subject as unworthy further discussion, simply resolving to
put her purpose in immediate execution. Thus in a few hours Milborough
received orders to quit the house; she only smiled at the mandate, and
prepared to obey with alacrity. While she was busily employed, Angelo,
led by one of those impulses he never knew how to resist, entered her
apartment. Milborough, who had fully expected this visit, nevertheless
affected surprise, forgot as usual in what she was engaged, and in the
utmost agitation stood still. Angelo, scarcely conscious of the purport
of his visit, regarded her with some embarrassment; he felt humbled, and
ashamed of the situation in which he found himself, yet knew not how to
retract. Milborough saw that an impellant was necessary; she raised her
eyes to those of Angelo, and casting them hastily down again, burst into
tears. This was sufficient for him, man becomes reassured when he
perceives that the confusion of a woman is greater than his own; he
approached Milborough, took her hand, and inquired the cause of her
distress.
“Oh, my lord, do not ask me,” she cried; “am I not going to quit my
beloved Felix? to quit you--your service, my lord?”
“And do you so much regret that, Milborough,” said Angelo, in a soothing
voice. The tears of Milborough redoubled, but she did not speak, for she
knew when to be silent. Angelo’s heart was softened by her seeming
anguish; he raised to his lips the hand he held, unworthy Angelo! and
causing Milborough to be seated, he said in the low voice of a man who
is conscious that he is saying what he ought not, “Grieve not,
Milborough; be assured, that although you quit this house, I shall ever
remember you with gratitude for the--the tenderness you have evinced
towards my son, and--and--”
“Talk not of gratitude to me, my lord,” cried Milborough with a sigh.
“Of love then, Milborough,” cried Angelo, with a smile. “But whither do
you go from hence? inform me at once, for I hear Felix coming towards
us.”
“I hear him too, my lord,” said Milborough with a timid glance; “and
since--since you deign to ask me of my destination--I go to my sister,
who resides at----” Felix drew nearer. Angelo approached his ear, and
the rest of her communication was whispered; when, unwilling that just
at this moment Felix should behold him with Milborough, he glided
hastily through the door that led into the apartment where first he had
become debased by attending to her. Miserable Angelo! how art thou sunk,
when even from the presence of thy child, thou fliest in confusion!
Triumphing in the folly of the one, and the misery she was preparing for
the other, the worthless Milborough quitted the house of her
benefactors, where for years she had possessed all the comforts of
polished life, and been cherished as the humble friend and well wisher
of the family; in return she had insulted the wife, seduced the husband,
and corrupted the child. Such too often is the return of the depraved
and mercenary vulgar for favours received, on whom benefits make no
impression beyond the moment, and in the vocabulary of whose sensations
the feeling, gratitude is not admitted.
A new æra of folly, or rather of vice, in the life of Angelo, now
presents itself; the vice no longer of youth either, but of maturer
years, the most unworthy, the most inexcusable, of all his former vices.
If in the seduction of Gabrielle might be pleaded an impetuous love,
excited by her manifold perfections; if in forsaking such excellence,
might be pleaded his natural fickleness, allured by the sprightliness
and affected simplicity of an Oriana; if further outraging a love and
sentiments of which he was unworthy, he could presume to offer in
extenuation the ravishing beauty, youth, and seeming innocence of a
Paulina; what could he urge, when neither youth, grace, mind, nor
manners, could be adduced as the attraction? What but a cureless
depravity of taste, which being satiated by that which is good, seeks to
excite anew a sickly appetite, by a reference to that which is bad?
Milborough possessed nothing, impartially considered, to charm or to
allure; she was neither beautiful nor young, nor from her birth and
education could she possibly be even elegant; in all probability she
would for ever have passed unnoticed by Angelo, had she not introduced
herself to his attention by flattering his vanity. Instantly he
discovered in her a thousand charms, which she possessed not, and which,
but for that single inducement, he never would have conceived her to
possess. Now he became weary of the sameness of being virtuous, though
he was only negatively so, and longed again for the meretricious
pleasures of guilt.
Thus then, after the departure of the worthless Milborough, his feet
wandered from home towards her habitation; her joy at beholding him,
though decorously she desired to veil it, scarcely could be concealed
from his view. The first decisive step once taken, the successive ones
were easy, and followed rapidly; visit produced visit; from frequency,
grew familiarity, from familiarity a fixed and settled intercourse that
ultimately involved the most terrible consequences.
For a time Milborough continued to pay court to the weak side of Angelo,
which her keen vulgar cunning had discovered to be an inordinate
vanity: this mode of conduct had first drawn him towards her, and now
rivetted him, and when at times his own polished education, refined
knowledge of customs, and propriety, would discover to him the gross
inaccuracies of Milborough, he would excuse himself for being pleased
with her society in the fancied conviction of her possessing an
excellent heart, and in the flattering belief that if he were to abstain
from seeing her, she would die of grief. But when once a vulgar mind
gains an ascendancy over a weak one, its obsequiousness ends, and the
fawning flatterer becomes a most insufferable tyrant; its requisitions
are those of profound folly, ignorance, and boundless presumption; and
such trammels are more difficult to be shaken off than those of wisdom
or of virtue.
Such was Milborough: she waited patiently till she beheld her empire
secure; that it was so she ascertained by increasing gradually her
demands upon Angelo; and finding each time that they were complied with
without a single remonstrance, although she well knew at the time, they
were such as he must find it difficult to compass; for example, among
other things, she once desired him to procure for her some jewels which
she remembered to have seen Gabrielle wear, promising that she would
return them immediately that she had used them once, and he might then
replace them from whence he took them, ere Gabrielle could perceive that
they were missing. The imprudent Angelo complied with this most insolent
demand, when to his confusion she afterwards laughingly refused to
resign them, and observing his embarrassment, vowed like a fury that
she was determined to keep them, or never see him more.
Angelo, in the true spirit of the libertine, who requires a zest even to
what he loves, was terrified at this threat; for though he might have
endured a separation with indifference, had he found she trembled at the
thought, yet when she became the instigator, he discovered in her charms
which he had never seen before. But what resource had he in the dilemma
in which he had unwarily involved himself? Unwilling to lead Gabrielle
into the error of suspecting any one unjustly, unwilling to appear or to
acknowledge himself a thief in her eyes, he had then only this
alternative. He caused a set precisely similar to those he had deprived
her of to be formed in paste, and replaced them in her cabinet ere,
domestic and unadorned as she ever was, she had missed them. Oh!
passion, when indulged for a worthless object, to what degradation wilt
thou hurry man!
Mean time Gabrielle who had been for some time in ignorance of this
disgraceful connexion, and who could not possibly suspect it, from
having been accustomed to appreciate too highly the pride and dignity of
Angelo, now heard of it from all with whom she had any acquaintance, who
scarcely even imagined it a secret from her; her own servants were fully
informed of the odious truth, and though they seemed indignant at the
infamy of Milborough, and treated their mistress with increased respect,
it was perhaps more from envy (which ever exists among the vulgar
against each other) at the good fortune of the former, than sincere and
generous sympathy in the outrage offered to the latter.
Indeed, the low minded Milborough did her utmost to impress upon the
mind of Gabrielle, that these reports were far from being unfounded: she
had an elegant establishment, and she disguised from no one, that it was
the Count D’Albini who enabled her to support it; she had an equipage
emblazoned with his arms, servants wearing his livery, and with these
her base and insensible soul led her to parade in unblushing triumph
past the door of her former mistress, in hopes of at some period
attracting her attention. Sometimes she even carried her shameless
audacity so far as to force into the seat beside her, the weak, degraded
Angelo, who, fearing to refuse, was borne along to catch the view of her
he was so cruelly insulting, yet not unblushing, but trembling like a
culprit who hides his head, with shame, from the glance of a just
judge.
Gabrielle saw, in silence saw, the career of Angelo, at a period of life
when the wild horses of folly slacken their course, and reason, becoming
powerful, calls them from the chace; when the soul desires to _rest_
from vain and ignoble pursuits, and experiences in the calm of a
reformed and virtuous life, more happiness than was ever found in the
palling irrational excesses of youth. She lived in the firm and pious
hope, that each day would convince him more deeply of his misconduct,
and that better reason must speedily prevail over what she considered
the last ebullitions of expiring error.
Bitter adversity, frequent disappointment, had so rationalized as it
were the firm mind of Gabrielle, that she now considered events rather
in a philosophical point of view, as resulting from an inevitable
necessity, and not therefore to be deeply or vainly lamented. In the
pride of her youth and beauty, bitterly had she felt the derelictions of
Angelo; but now with a humility that rendered her but more exalted,
placing the rich treasures of her mind from the question, and estimating
her personal charms even far below their real standard, she remembered
that she was no longer so young or so attractive as formerly, and that
the passions, tastes, and inclinations of men outliving, from their
habits and mode of education, those of women, would sometimes lead them
to pursue to a late period of life the means of indulging or gratifying
them, and that therefore they were not to be too severely arraigned for
faults almost implanted in their nature. Thus did she endeavour to
excuse in Angelo, not only to herself, but to others, a conduct for
which all who knew her despised and condemned him; and this she did,
still cherishing hope, that her patience, toleration, and forbearance,
must have ere long its effect over a good and honest heart, which still,
spite of his errors, she believed Angelo’s to be. Neither could she
think, as at first she could not credit _who_ it was that had attracted
Angelo, that an object so every way despicable could continue to detain
him in the path of evil.
But when at length hope faded from her bosom, and still she perceived
that his degradation continued; heart-sick and wretched, she shut
herself up in her chamber; and a native pride which few could
understand, and which she inherited from her noble father, made her
refuse to see any one whose pity must have humbled, and whose unfeeling
condolence she would have deemed an insult. The unhappy Gabrielle
perceived too soon, that in flattering herself the dreadful misconduct
of Angelo would be but of short duration, she possessed not a just
knowledge of human nature; for the errors of later years are far more
inveterate than those of youth. She perceived likewise that what little
decorum he had for a time thought fit to observe towards her, and which
had been with her indeed a strong ground of hope (for naturally, argued
she, he is ashamed, and will not therefore persevere in what gives a
feeling of humiliation) gradually wore off, and a bold insensibility of
demeanour succeeded, not more cruel and unworthy, than it was offensive
to delicacy and propriety. He was now seldom at home, he avoided as much
as possible the sight of the injured Gabrielle, but if accidentally they
met, he seemed impatient, and his manners were constrained, or coldly
polite. What alternative for her under circumstances so hopeless? She
still remembered she had a son; at some future period she might be
assured that she had still a daughter; she decided then at once to
remain unshaken, to _bear_ and to _forbear_ with the father for the sake
of his children.
Such was her resolution, a resolution, as she conceived, of duty and
necessity. But soon she found that even on this principle she might be
justly exonerated from further endurance of the treatment of Angelo,
from the sacrifice of her best and tenderest feelings at the shrine of
that duty which had ever been the invariable motive of all her actions,
and to which she was still willing to become a martyr.
The young Felix, who, as has been already observed, entertained for his
superior mother but little affection, bestowed all of that sentiment
which he was capable of feeling on the abandoned Milborough, for whom he
pined in secret, and whom since her departure from the house he had not
seen. In vain did the unfortunate mother seek in the eyes of her son for
some shadow of respectfully tender commiseration; in them she beheld,
often a restless roving expression, but at all times an indifference to
her. There was no eloquent sympathy in the tone of his voice; in his
manners, no soothing gentleness; from him too was she compelled to turn
with a deep drawn sigh of anguish, but in that sigh _remembered_ that
though unhappily he loved her not, he was her son.
Such became the boundless and audacious extravagance of the worthless
Milborough, whose aim it was as much to reduce Angelo to beggary, to
destroy Gabrielle, as to enrich herself, that the magnitude of her
demands sometimes anticipated, and even exceeded the receipts of Angelo.
In his absence she kept the lowest society, such as was most consonant
to her birth, ideas, and former station, and indulged with them in the
most expensive and riotous carousals. As a man is rarely singly vicious,
that is, vicious in a single point alone, Angelo, to support and gratify
the unlimited profusion of this woman, found an excuse for resorting
with increased ardour to what had ever been a favourite pursuit of his,
the vice of gaming: success had attended him often, when as a pleasure
merely he yielded to the propensity, but now that he resorted to it as a
mean, while Milborough was draining him on one hand, this was
impoverishing him on the other. Loss succeeded to loss, and his
perpetual failure, so far from inducing him to withdraw, ere certain
ruin should ensue, rendered him desperate, and caused him to persevere,
in the delusive hope, that one fortunate throw would speedily retrieve
all. He was mistaken however; fortune, fickle like himself, repaid him
in kind, and fled from him when most he courted her.
It now remained only for the artful Milborough, who had found the pliant
Angelo acceding, whether remonstratingly or otherwise, but still
acceding to her every request, to propose to him one which in insolence
and depravity should far exceed any which she had hitherto proposed. It
was not enough for her, that by the most ruinous excesses, and shameless
profligacy, she was shortening the life of Gabrielle, as she was
abridging her means of existence, but she desired to injure her in a
deeper degree, or rather to destroy her at once.
Aware that though she had weaned the love of Felix from his mother, yet
aware likewise of her extravagant fondness for him, and considering that
while he was no longer in the sphere of her attraction, nor capable of
being contaminated by her influence, nature and the exquisite goodness
of his unhappy parent might prevail in his heart, she determined to
deprive Gabrielle of him, whom groundlessly she feared might prove a
consolation to her in her misery; and for this purpose she demanded of
Angelo, in that flattering fawning tone in which she usually solicited
favours of him, and which, strange to say, seldom failed of producing
its effect, that he would permit, as the highest gratification he could
confer on her, that the boy Felix might visit her for one day, adding,
“I know you will not refuse me, my dearest Angelo: you never look so
captivating as when you grant my requests.” Angelo, with a pleased
smile, while he absolutely considered her the most engaging female he
had ever known, replied that he would think of what she required,
secretly determining in his mind, without the smallest compassion for
the feelings of the insulted Gabrielle, that he would surprise her that
very evening with the sight of her favourite Felix.
Nothing could equal the sycophantic insidiousness of Milborough, when
she wished to gain a point with Angelo, nothing her base deceit; she
could be compared only to the snake, which gently coiling round the
victim it wishes to destroy, twists tighter and more tight till its firm
grasp can be no more disputed, and agonizing death ensues. Possessed of
no internal dignity, no high-mindedness, the most abject meanness of
conduct conveyed no unpleasant feeling to her heart: she flattered, and
fawned, and crouched, when desiring a favour; she was arrogant, and
daring, and insufferable, when she had obtained it--passing rapidly from
the extreme of slave to tyrant. But if by a most unusual chance she did
_not_ immediately obtain it, if Angelo dared to hesitate, then she had
another line of acting in reserve; she ranted, stormed, and threatened
that if he did not instantly comply, she would quit him suddenly, and he
should never hear of her more; thus artfully bringing before him as a
misfortune, that which would have been for him the greatest good that
could have befallen.
Faithful to his intention, the degraded Angelo left her for the purpose
of returning to her with Felix. As the youth was frequently a companion
in his rambles, to the edification neither of his head nor heart, his
going with him from home excited no remark from Gabrielle, but pleased
her rather, from the so natural conviction that he could not be going to
Milborough.
Felix neither asked nor cared whither he was going; he was going from
home, from under the same roof with his ever melancholy mother, and his
vivacity speedily revived, thoughtless and wild. Angelo made no
observation with respect to the object he had in view, till they arrived
at the door of an elegant habitation; as soon as they gained
admittance, he ran up stairs, bade Felix follow, and in a moment he was
in the presence of Milborough, who receiving him with open arms,
scarcely knew how to express the exuberance of her joy.
Felix was now happy, he was with Milborough; he thought indeed she
appeared less handsome, because less easy than in her homely attire, but
she was more sprightly than his melancholy mother, and towards him at
least was unaltered. Too young accurately to understand, he yet surmised
something of the truth, and easily perceived that his favourite
Milborough was likewise, as he had often wished her to be, a favourite
with his father; he looked upon her as his _indulgent_ mother, who never
exerted over him any authority like his _severe_ one, as he had been
taught to consider the mild and gentle Gabrielle, and who, if she could
see him happy, would never disapprove of the means by which he became
so.
The education of the youth, independently of his little application,
was, through the eternal procrastination and carelessness of Angelo, but
very slightly improved; he feared to damp his young energies by
ponderous and oppressive study, he remembered that he himself had never
been pestered with school learning, and that he had parents (to the full
as inconsiderate towards him as he was now towards his own son,) who
would not suffer him to quit home, or to clog his sprightly genius, but
procured for him a private tutor, under whom he made sufficient progress
to qualify him for the rank and situation he was to hold in society;
while from his mother he learnt affability and sweetness of manners,
from his father, polite and elegant demeanour. Such then he insisted
should alone be the education of Felix. Thus is error transmitted from
father to son, and frequently perpetuated to the destruction of
successive generations. A private tutor, Angelo observed, might be
always obtained; mean time he could himself impart to his son some
necessary instruction, and it was useless to deprive himself so
precipitately of an entertaining companion and pleasing associate, of
whom he was so extravagantly fond.
Thus, then, on Gabrielle devolved the task of fitting his young mind for
future study, by imbuing it with a love of science and thirst of further
knowledge. The stores of her own rich and elegantly fraught mind,
fraught by the delicate and careful hand of a father, she desired to
impart to her son, and fully adequate was she to the task: but Felix
soon perceiving that no one but her attempted to restrain him, (for
Angelo, unmindful even of his own arrangement, had no _leisure_ as yet
to give instructions which he could at _any time_ impart,) and that his
avocations with his mother detained him frequently from a pleasurable
excursion with his father, or from some entertainment prepared for him
by Milborough, conceived, from the imprudence and improper conduct of
those around him, a disgust for study, which, at the insinuations of the
domestic traitor, Milborough, who might have differently exerted her
influence, was easily transferred into a dislike of her who taught.
Thus, from the peculiarly unfortunate situation in which she was placed,
Gabrielle perceived by slow degrees, and with an anguish inexpressible,
her power over the mind of her son on the wane; he no longer attended to
her implicitly, or if she succeeded in rivetting him for a moment,
Angelo would too frequently call him off for some more agreeable, but
more unprofitable pursuit. Felix by these means was induced rather to
shun than court her society; and, in dismay at finding herself the only
tyrant of the youth, her firm perseverance relaxed, for she felt that
those instructions must be useless which were never received but with
reluctance. Thus was a fine field left open for the suggestions of
ignorance and depravity; for where wisdom and virtue were not suffered
to take root, the weeds of error sprang up apace.
Milborough had asked of Angelo that he would permit Felix for _once_ to
visit her; but her request only literally granted, would not have
answered her purpose; she therefore having obtained possession of the
youth, would no more suffer him to depart, but assured Angelo laughing,
that having long this idea in view, she had had an apartment in
readiness for him, for some time past. Angelo was confounded; he
declined entering into any dispute with Milborough before his son, but
flattered himself that he should easily prevail upon her to give up so
indecorous and extravagant a caprice at another opportunity.
Mean time Felix, rejoiced to excess, was permitted to remain, and the
abandoned Milborough carried as usual her point.
CHAPTER XX.
The unhappy Gabrielle, immured almost always in her solitary chamber,
worn out, and nearly heart-broken with ceaseless suffering and
disappointment, felt that with her intellectual energy so long upheld,
(but now rapidly sinking) her physical strength was decaying likewise,
and that long thus she could not continue to exist. The few who,
attracted by her singular worth and merits, had _made it a point_ to
call themselves her friends, captivated more by the desire of appearing
liberal and high minded than from any real admiration they were capable
of feeling, she had from the humiliating dereliction of Angelo refused
to see, for they had been his friends before they had professed
themselves hers; and her genuine sense of delicacy and honour shrunk
from the impropriety of hearing animadversions passed upon him on her
account, or from the contemptible meanness of seeking to inspire pity by
the gentle resignation with which she endured insults, that she could
have wished unknown for ever to any but herself.
Thus, she was almost isolated. Angelo she scarcely ever saw, and Felix
when in her presence appeared not employed by any thought so much as
that of escaping from it. Now, of beholding even him sometimes, she
suddenly found herself deprived; where could he be? A dreadful idea
glanced across her mind, he must be with his father--should she
condescend to inquire of the servants if he had returned and departed
again alone?--No, to no eye could she voluntarily betray her grief, and
mortifying ignorance of the movements of those so near to her. She
determined then to preserve silence, but vigilantly to watch for the
moment when Felix should make his appearance, and question himself as to
whither he had been.
But in vain she was silent, in vain she watched. Felix appeared no more.
The anguish of her mind became intense, she felt almost certain _where_
he lingered, and had half determined to address Angelo by letter upon
this dreadful subject, when with his usual constrained air he suddenly
appeared before her.
“Angelo,” exclaimed she, starting up, the moment she beheld him,
incapable of restraining her emotion, while he cooly bowed; “Angelo, oh!
let us wave all idle ceremonies for the present, I am too sick to attend
to them, tell me, and tell me truly I beseech you, where is my
son?--_your_ son--?”
“Really, Gabrielle, this is such an extraordinary salute that--that
I,”--he stopped embarrassed.
“Oh! Angelo,” cried the distracted Gabrielle, seizing him by the
arm--“away with this mockery, and answer me at once--This suspense is
worse than the most dreadful certainty; tell me what have you done with
Felix?”
“This conduct is so singular, madam, that really--”
“Oh God!” interrupted Gabrielle, clasping her hands, and bursting into
tears “is it thus then that you treat me, Angelo!--But no matter,” she
pursued, endeavouring to throw firmness into her voice, and to collect
herself; “inform me only of my son--I claim a _right_, sir, to be
informed upon that subject.”
Angelo was awed, and shrank into himself; he felt that Gabrielle had
justice on her side, and that he had not. Like a culprit summoned before
a judge, comes to defend a bad cause, and seeing his accuser before him
is struck dumb by the power of conscience--so Angelo, when he raised his
eyes to the accusing form of the injured Gabrielle, felt how truly
guilty he was, and remained silent. Gabrielle, uttered no reproach; she
determined not to utter any, for she felt their inutility, since he who
is not just from inclination, will never be rendered so by the voice of
reproof; but finding that he still preserved a confused silence, she in
a firm voice repeated her question.
“He is under my care,” at length stammered Angelo.
“Not at present,” observed Gabrielle.
“He is safe,” said Angelo.
“Convince me,” answered Gabrielle.--
“My word is surely sufficient.”
“Not in the present case; you will not, my lord, lay your hand upon your
heart, and say that you consider him at _this_ moment where he ought to
be.”
Angelo was silent; he looked aside. Gabrielle fixed on his varying
countenance her sad, yet searching eyes, and uttered in a voice of
solemn anguish,
“He is with _Milborough_.”
Angelo started, as if in horror that it _should_ be so--so true is
conscience. He made no reply.
“Your silence is sufficient confirmation,” pursued she in the same
impressive tone: “now then, Angelo, ere it be too late, return him to
me.”
“That cannot be,” said Angelo.
“Cannot be!--cannot be!” shrieked Gabrielle, again overpowered by the
violence of her feelings--“Oh Angelo, Angelo,” she continued, falling on
her knees, and raising her clasped hands towards him, “I conjure you,
not by your present love, but by the love you once had for me,--I
conjure you for the future welfare and happiness of your child,--if you
consider aught that is most valuable to _him_ in existence--I implore, I
beseech you, let him not remain with _that_ woman:--destruction, yes
eternal destruction must ensue, not only of present but of future
life--his _soul_ will be sacrificed. Angelo, I implore you listen to my
prayer, return him to me ere he be lost beyond redemption.”
The heart of Angelo throbbed violently--he was affected by her solemn
adjuration, but he desired not that she should perceive it; he looked at
Gabrielle for a moment, he durst not longer,--he endeavoured to raise
her from the ground as with averted face he said, “In aught else
command me, Gabrielle; but the boy must remain where he is.”
“Then!” cried Gabrielle, springing from her knees with a countenance of
fire, and looking sternly upon Angelo, “_Then his destruction be upon
your head_; remember, that at a _future_ day, you will _curse_ yourself
for this!--remember--remember--that _he_ will curse you likewise!”
“Frantic woman!” cried Angelo, roused to a consciousness of guilt, and
therefore of rage, at her awful prophecy, “Frantic woman! he is my
son--I have a right to do with him as I will, and who dare dispute my
pleasure?”
“His _mother_,” answered Gabrielle in a firm voice, “_she_ dares--sir,
he is _my_ son as well as yours, and I have as dear an interest in
him!”
“Yes,” interrupted Angelo, with a bitter, smile, “more than _he_ has in
you!”
“The more my misfortune! the more my misfortune!” cried the wretched
Gabrielle in a voice of anguish, and bursting into tears, “Cruel Angelo,
I little expected this reproach from _you_; but still I will spare you.”
Angelo, shocked at the observation that had escaped him, detesting
himself for his unworthy cruelty, found his feelings of bitterness
increased by his self-contempt, and hastily cried, “Well, madam, this
scene is unnecessarily prolonged, I have other avocations.”
“Ah yes, too well do I know that you have; but hear me a moment,” she
pursued, endeavouring to subdue her suffocating emotion, “hear me but a
moment. Since I may not be permitted to claim my son, to be considered
as the mother of my child, grant me but this, for surely you will not
deny me all. Suffer me once more to behold him, let me take of him a
last farewell, it may enable me to exist a little longer under this most
cruel misery.”
“Well,” said Angelo, who though he had not been generous enough to
concede for his past unfeeling insinuation, yet desired to make some
amends. “Well, be it so then; I will bring him to you presently.”
“Let me see him alone.”
“Promise me then that you will not attempt to tamper with the boy.”
“I _tamper_ with him!”
“That you will not offer to detain him then.”
“I _promise_,” said Gabrielle, while a tear struggling from its
confinement, fell hastily down her cheek, “I promise that he shall do
nothing unwillingly.”
“Well, that conditional promise will do,” observed Angelo, while the
inconsiderate remark conveyed an added pang to the lacerated heart of
the mother. Angelo prepared to depart; she sought not to detain him, and
he left the room, promising that she should presently behold her son.
Slight was the hope which Gabrielle ventured to cherish from this
promised interview; her sole dependance was on the power she might
possess of working on the feelings of the youth; though he loved her
not, she determined to leave no means untried to snatch him from
destruction; the cruel remarks of Angelo, indeed, left no room for
sanguine reliance, and while her conscience proudly whispered to her,
that she had done every thing to deserve the fondest affection of Felix,
she felt that even the consciousness of virtue abates not the pang which
is inflicted on the heart of a mother by a child’s ingratitude.
The slavish and degenerate Angelo, returning to Milborough, almost
feared to inform her of the promise into which he had entered; but at
length he found courage carelessly to insinuate that Felix must return
home with him immediately. No sooner had he spoke than he beheld all
the fury gathering in the countenance of Milborough; she repeated the
word “home” contemptuously, and vowed that the youth should not be
suffered to quit her presence, even for an instant.
But the word of Angelo was pledged, and subject as he was, he resolved
to abide by it, and for once even to assert himself; he therefore
retorted upon Milborough, expressing that his pleasure should be obeyed,
who had immediate recourse to her usual violence upon all occasions when
Angelo presumed to oppose her. In a passion of rage he exclaimed, that
as she had obtained possession of the boy by fraud and artifice, she
should not be permitted to detain him by presumption and violence, and
that if she persisted in her present opposition, he would not only
depart with him immediately, but she should never behold him more.
No sooner had Angelo spoken thus, than the fury sunk into tame
submission; she wept, and attributed her warmth, as she termed it, to
the ardent affection which she bore the youth, and her fears of trusting
him out of her presence, lest by some unforeseen event she should be
deprived of him for ever; she concluded by imploring of Angelo, that if
he determined to fulfil his purpose, he would first suffer her to be a
few minutes alone with her beloved Felix. To this the imprudent Angelo
readily assented. The youth, who had witnessed the altercation
respecting him, and who secretly hoped that Milborough would prove
triumphant, accompanied her with alacrity from the room.
She employed the moments allowed her by Angelo in steeling him to the
dreaded influence of his mother, and exhorting him not to be seduced by
her pretended fondness and eloquent speeches; for the wretched
Milborough was well aware of her own vulgar incapacity, and that every
triumph she gained over the heart of Felix was obtained by means most
vile and reprehensible. “Do not, my dear lovely Felix,” added she in her
illiterate jargon, “let yourself be prevailed upon by fair promises and
fine acting to live again with your mother, for you know well how she
used to damp your spirits, and check you, my dear boy, till my heart
bled for you, and she could never bear to see you happy. It would be all
the same again in a little time, and you would wish yourself in your
grave before the end of a month. Nobody, my dearest Felix, loves you as
I do, and _nobody never_ can, not even your father;--all my happiness is
to see you happy.” She pursued in a faltering voice, and calling in the
aid of tears, which she suffered to trickle down her cheeks, that their
effect might not be lost upon the youth, “and I am certain if you do not
return to me, I shall die of grief; I feel it.”
The youth embraced her with an affection due only to a mother, and vowed
that he would return to her, loving her as he did a thousand times
better than his natural parent: indeed his sentiments were too much in
unison with those of his infamous adviser; she had taught him to
consider his mother, not only with the utmost disrespect, but as a
severe and implacable judge, from whom it was requisite to conceal the
innocent indulgences which she bestowed upon him; as a harsh overseer
of every pleasure, which as requiring none herself, she thought
unnecessary for youth; he was taught, in short, to regard her as an
enemy, rather than a friend, and a capricious tyrant, rather than an
anxious mother. Above all, the vile Milborough failed not to impress
upon his mind, what she had so often laboured to effect, that his mother
was no more entitled to his veneration, from the purity of her conduct,
or her esteemed rank in society, than she was to his affection, for her
kindness or indulgence; adding, that she was now far inferior, even to
herself, inasmuch as the Count D’Albini no longer considered her as his
wife. Thus prepared with hypocritical caresses, and manifestations of
regret, she suffered him to depart with Angelo, who had begun to grow
impatient, purely from the desire of getting rid of an affair, in which
he now regretted to have involved himself. He accompanied the youth to
the door of his insulted mother, without making to him any other
observation than that when she permitted him to depart, he should expect
to see him again, where of late he had resided. To this remark, Felix
promised acquiescence, with an eagerness that embarrassed and somewhat
shocked even Angelo: then, faithful to his agreement, of not being
present at the interview, when the door opened he waved his hand, and
left him.
Felix walked leisurely up stairs, forgetting, in the indifference or
rather reluctance with which he performed his task, the animation so
natural to youth. Gabrielle who had been passing the intermediate space
in the most painful anxiety, had heard his arrival, and heard his
subsequent slow step upon the stairs, which struck upon her ear as the
knell of death, and nearly deprived her of the slight portion of hope
and firmness which she had been endeavouring to acquire.
The door opened, the youth bowed slightly and advanced. Gabrielle half
rose from her chair, to meet him, but his cool and settled countenance,
his unaffectionate air, checked her instantly, and again she sank down,
merely stretching forth to him her trembling hand, which partaking the
agitation of her whole frame, was covered with a cold dew. Felix
approached, and took her hand; he retained it for a moment; he neither
pressed nor carried it to his lips, but remained standing beside her,
though with an air embarrassed, yet devoid of the least symptom of
tenderness or sensibility.
The anguished mother fixed her eyes upon his youthful countenance, so
youthful yet so hard to her,--upon that countenance on which so often
she had gazed with fond delight, so fair, so health blooming, surrounded
in graceful luxuriance by bright auburn curls, while her’s, sad
contrast, was pale as death itself; an unwiped tear rested upon her
frozen cheek, she resembled a broken down lily upon which some remains
of the torrent that bowed it to the earth still hangs. Her son raised
his eyes to that face in which sadness and despair were so vividly
depicted; he raised his eyes, but cast them down again slowly--his
_heart_ was unmoved.
“Felix, my dear child,” said the anguished mother, in a low voice, for
she durst not grant it its usual latitude, “will you not speak to me?”
“I thought it was you, who desired to speak with me,” returned Felix.
“But, my dear love, after so long an absence, have you not any thing to
say to me?”
“Not so _very_ long an absence,” returned the youth with an insensible
smile, which was answered by a deep-drawn sigh from the heart of the
mother, she endeavoured to command herself, however and said--
“Have you been happy then, my dear Felix, since the time appears so
short to you?”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” replied Felix, his vivacity returning, “I was never
so happy before.”
“And could you not be equally happy with me?”
Felix was silent.
“Could you not be happy, my child, with a mother who tenderly loves
you?”
“You are always so melancholy.”
“But I would endeavour to be cheerful,” answered Gabrielle, waving, in
her anxiety to detach her son from his present ruinous situation, his
unfeeling remarks upon herself.
“Ah! but,” said Felix, “Milborough,”--he stopped, confused, having
involuntarily uttered her name, which a certain feeling convinced him he
ought not to have done.
“Well, what of her?” said Gabrielle in an irregular voice, yet affecting
not to notice his confusion.
“Why she,” answered Felix, venturing to look up, “--she is always so
kind.”
“She was a kind nurse to you, my child, but she has not those claims
upon you that I have. Do you not remember, before you even knew her,
when you were extremely young, how fond you were of me? the care I took
of you, how I studied your happiness, your pleasure?” Tears hindered her
from proceeding, for at that moment she remembered the bleak wintry
night when, wandering about with him in her arms, famishing herself
that he might be sustained, supporting him from the wet ground when
having scarcely strength to support herself, how he smiled upon her, and
caressed her as in fond gratitude for her kindness, now to look upon her
so changed! so insensible! turning aside from her, who had endured so
much for him--him who had been her primary care, her object in every
movement. Scarce could she persuade herself that she beheld before her
this cherished darling son, disputing for his love with a hired
mercenary wretch, whom unblushingly he acknowledged to prefer to _her_!
The thought was agony, was horror, and she wept aloud.
Felix observed her intense anguish, but he made no effort to allay it;
so estranged was his heart from her, that he knew not _how_, nor did he
feel a sensation sufficiently strong to induce him to make the attempt;
he experienced impatience only, at witnessing a grief by which he was
unaffected, and which cast a gloom over moments that might have been
more pleasingly employed.
“Great God!” cried Gabrielle, as she gazed on him through her tears, and
marked his stubborn averted countenance, and eye which roved around,
“great God! how has the heart of this child become thus hardened towards
his mother?--what fiend-like influence can have corrupted him thus in so
short a time? for no human power could have worked a change so rapid and
prodigious.”
Unhappy Gabrielle! she knew not that this had been no work of a moment,
nor that his love, respect, and filial feelings towards her had been
for years undermining by the base intrigues of a remorseless destroyer.
Grief, anguish, compassion, were the predominant sensations of her mind;
she felt not anger, but acute regret at witnessing the unyielding
insensibility of the youth, and as he still stood beside her, she threw
her arms around him, and shed over him _tears too bitter_ to be the
portion of a _mother_! Felix did not struggle to withdraw himself from
her embrace, neither did he return it--she looked at him, but his eyes
were tearless, while on his cheek, wet only with those _she_ had shed,
mantled a faint conscious blush.
Gabrielle now felt the full hopelessness of her struggle, she relaxed in
despair her fond embrace, for she perceived by his faint blush that
though he was sensible to his conduct, he still persevered in it: yet
suddenly she exclaimed, “Yes, you must; you shall remain with me, Felix!
it is for your good that you should, it is my duty to command it, it is
yours to obey. This cruel reserve, this insensibility towards a mother
will subside: my anxious care, my love, shall make it! My dearest child,
say you will remain with me; you shall have no cause to repent.”
“But you say it is my duty,” observed Felix, the poison of Milborough’s
base principles fermenting in his mind: “it is not my _duty_.”
“Well then, my love, forget the term, be it inclination,” cried
Gabrielle, regarding him with tearful eyes, willing upon any terms to
save him from compleat destruction.
“But it is not my _duty_,” pursued the unhappy child, “more to remain
with you, than with Milborough.”
“Certainly, my child, more with me; she was only your nurse, I am your
mother; she is not wedded to your father, she is not”----
“Neither are _you_!--she says,”--cried Felix interrupting her.
This was too much; the heart-stricken Gabrielle, uttering a faint
exclamation, sprang up, her pale cheek glowing with the deepest crimson;
her soul shook within her, and though scarcely had she the power to
stand, with a desperate effort she summoned her receding strength and
rushed half frantic from the room. Scarce had she gained her own
apartment ere she fell prostrate on the floor, and kind insensibility
gave a temporary relief to nature from pangs which with life it could
not long have borne.
Felix, whose feelings were not refined either by nature or education,
did not conceive, when he saw his mother rush from the room, that what
he had last uttered could have produced such an effect. His stubborn
silence had been now broken, and he rather expected from her some reply;
for a short time he remained in the apartment she had so abruptly
quitted, supposing that she would speedily return, and fearing to go
unbidden lest he should be again subject to a future similar interview.
When however he found that she neither returned, nor sent any one to
him, he considered himself at liberty to depart, and without further
hesitation running down the stairs, though he had only walked up, he
felt, when from beneath the roof of his injured mother, his constraint
vanishing, and his vivacity returning; while the joy with which he
rushed into the house of Milborough, formed a forcible contrast to the
reluctant step with which he had entered hers.
The abandoned Milborough received him with an exultation that she could
not disguise; he related to her the issue of his visit, and all that had
passed during its continuance; for the conduct he described himself to
have pursued, he received from her profuse caresses, and unbounded
expressions of gratitude, for preferring her to his mother, and for
having so faithfully kept his promise of returning to her.
CHAPTER XXI.
A little time elapsed, and the changeful Angelo, steady only in his
fickleness, became gradually less bigotted to the society of the
uneducated Milborough, and more addicted to his favourite habit of
gaming, and which, as has been before observed, in consequence of his
boundlessly increased expences, he now resorted to, as much for profit
as pleasure. But fortune grew daily more unkind; she still fled, he
still pursued, and in the true spirit of a gamester, he determined that
he would not desist from the chace while he retained the power of
continuing it, or if he felt his courage on the wane, he recruited it by
plentiful libations to the rosy god.
One night, having lost to a considerable amount, goaded on by rage, by a
despairing hope, and that resistless impulse which ever actuates the
real gamester, he drank off a bumper of the Tuscan juice, and then,
inspired with a false courage, determined in a phrenzy, to push fortune
to the utmost, and not to quit the table whilst a possibility of staking
aught remained, till he had endeavoured at least to cover the whole of
his losses. He persevered, he was resolute, and his resolution cost him
dear; he staked to the amount of every guinea he possessed, he followed
it up by all he could call his, the house in which Gabrielle still
continued to drag on her lingering existence, his equipages, horses,
plate, &c. and it was not till he discovered that nothing more remained
which he had a right to stake, (for the house in which Milborough
resided was not his,) that he recovered his senses to lose them again
almost immediately in madness of a different description, and to rush a
pennyless beggar from the abode of ruin which late as that very night he
had entered in comparative affluence.
The chief of his property had been lost, or rather transferred to one
person--that person _his dearest and most intimate friend_, one with
whom he had sometimes played with success, but more frequently to
manifest disadvantage; he was steady, politic, and cool, and found it no
difficult matter generally to come off conqueror from one who was rash,
inconsiderate, without sufficient judgment to direct, and without
patience to abide by the little he possessed. This friend, who, though a
man of the world, possessed some feeling, perceiving the confusion and
horror of Angelo painted in his countenance, seized him by the hand, and
cordially shaking it, bade him not let dame Fortune obtain a victory
over the spirit of his soul, adding that he might settle the affair
between them at his leisure, as it was furthest from his wish to trouble
or _inconvenience_ him.
Such the language of the world, such the consolation of their
friendship; and even Ellesmere; the successful gamester, possessed a
greater share of feeling than usually belongs to that class of beings,
who not only remorselessly strip each other of all they possess, but
attempt neither to hide their exultation nor speak a word of
consolation, however vain, to the wretch they have driven to ruin and
desperation. In a state of madness, such however as left him of sense
sufficient to feel his woe, Angelo reached the only spot which strictly
speaking he might presume to enter, the abode of Milborough; he rushed
into the room, where she was sitting carelessly singing an air with
Felix; one hand he pressed to his burning forehead, the other was
stretched wildly towards them, as bidding them cease; his glazed eyes
wandered around, his cheek glowed with a feverish red, his brow was
writhed, his hair dishevelled, his vest torn open, and his whole
appearance the wildest image of frenzy and despair, personified in the
ruined gamester;
“For Heaven’s sake, what has happened, Angelo?” exclaimed Milborough,
starting up. Angelo made no reply, but gazing on her, burst into a
convulsive laugh.
“Good God! he is certainly mad,” cried the unfeeling Milborough, rushing
toward the bell.
“Stay, Milborough,” he exclaimed, violently seizing her arm, roused by
her remark, and the action which accompanied it, “I am not yet quite
mad, but I soon shall be; I am ruined, stripped of every guinea I
possess; I have not,” he cried, raising his voice to frenzy, “no, I have
not wherewithal to procure _bread_ for to-morrow,”--and at the horrible
conviction, his eyes rolled wildly round.
At this explanation the countenance of Milborough suddenly changed, her
selfish terrors gave place to other ideas, but no less selfish; had
Angelo spoken for ever, he could not have said _more_ to her than was
confirmed in the few words he had uttered in the short sentence, “_I am
ruined!_” After the pause of a moment, her countenance again underwent a
change, she drew near him; and taking his hand she said, “Is this all,
my dearest Angelo?”
“All!--all!” interrupted Angelo, “is it not enough?”
“Certainly it is dreadful, but not sufficient to throw you into despair.
One lucky cast might yet retrieve all, perhaps.”
“Woman!” raved Angelo, “have I not told you that I am beggared! that I
have no longer a claim to the chance of another cast!--or--or do you
think I would, like a _coward_, have retreated?” added he, breathing
the desperate defiance of the gamester.
“Well, well, my dearest Angelo, compose yourself, a glass of wine will
do you service. Fly, Felix, and procure some wine for my lord.”
Angelo with a desponding groan threw himself into a chair; wine was
brought, Milborough poured him out a full goblet, and presenting it to
him, entreated that he would drink; fevered with heat, and his mouth
parched, mechanically he took the wine, and swallowed it.
By dint of persuasion she prevailed on him to drink a second glass, a
third and fourth then rapidly followed: from the madness of despair,
Angelo was passing fast into the madness of intoxication! his cares
began to assume an aspect less terrific, and the exhilirating hope which
is inspired by wine, caused the future to appear less gloomy; by degrees
his moody despondency vanished, and, as had been the secret aim of
Milborough, he applied spontaneously to the bottle for that seducing
influence, which sweetly blinded him to the frightful reality of his
situation.
Milborough now ventured carelessly to revert to it: “But, my dear
Angelo,” she observed, “surely every thing is not as bad as you think;
you have sufficient, I trust, to cover all; then you might retire upon a
little.”
“Upon nothing, you mean! I can never redeem myself.”
“But, my lord,” cried Felix, “could you not collect all you have at
present in your possession, and make your escape to the Continent?”
Angelo, nearly intoxicated, irritable, and still alive to a certain
sense of honour, looking fiercely at his son, seized him by the arm, and
for the first time in his life inflicted on him a blow, and inflicted it
unjustly, for assuredly it was no fault in the youth, that education had
not instilled into him proper principles, or given him correct ideas.
He did not speak; his young heart swelled with indignant fury, he looked
at his father with flashing eyes, and face of fire; it was the first
correction he had ever received; it was violent, and he had never been
accustomed to any; he knew not how to endure it, he was bursting to
resent! a feeling of fear alone restrained him, and tears of impotent
rage rushed to his eyes! Milborough glanced at him significantly, and
affecting not to notice the violence of Angelo, observed, “But you have
money to a large amount in the house, that you received from your banker
the other day, that surely may be saved, and at all events will----”
“I must have that too; all will be insufficient.”
“But you forget how much it is; lend me the key of your cabinet, and I
will bring it to you.”
“Do you suppose it has increased since I placed it there?” cried Angelo,
throwing down the key, “I know too well that all will be insufficient.”
“Well,” said Milborough, carelessly taking up the key, which she twisted
around her finger, “it will at all events be a satisfaction to
calculate;” so saying she went towards the door, when suddenly
returning, she exclaimed, “But I forgot, I must not leave you, Angelo, I
shall have you getting gloomy again; come, take another glass of wine,
and banish care.”
Angelo heaved a sigh, and hastily drank off the wine; then leaning his
head upon his hand, he remained absorbed in gloomy silence: he had
returned, harassed, fatigued, exhausted, at an unusually late hour; it
was now getting dawn; his eyes were closed, his ideas became confused,
his heavy head dropped from his hand, and he fell into a profound
slumber.
No sooner did Milborough perceive that the wine had taken its desired
effect on him, than silently she rose and beckoned Felix, (who was
sternly brooding over the blow he had received,) from the room. Rising,
involuntarily with caution, he followed her out.
“Go,” said Milborough in a whisper, “if any of the servants remain up,
tell them they may retire, afterwards come to me to the chamber of your
father.”
Felix left her, to act as she had desired, while she, hastening to the
chamber of Angelo, remained at the door waiting his return. In a few
moments Felix appeared; Milborough placed her finger on her lip, and in
a low voice he said, “I found only one servant up, and he was in so deep
a sleep that I could not awake him.”
“I am sorry you attempted it,” said Milborough, hastening as lightly as
she could down the stairs to the room where Felix informed her the
servant was sleeping; and then gently locking the door upon him,
retraced her steps to the chamber of Angelo, still accompanied by Felix.
Having entered, she closed the door; approaching his cabinet, she coolly
unlocked it, and taking thence all the gold she could find, together
with jewels to a considerable amount, among which were those that had
appertained to Gabrielle, and which she had obtained from Angelo by
fraudulent artifice, she gave them into the hands of Felix, saying, “Let
us at all events secure these from the Count’s creditors; it would be a
pity they should obtain all: as for these jewels they are mine, and they
have no right to them.”
Felix acquiesced readily in her idea, and accepted the things from her
hands. “Now then,” said she, “Felix, be light and cautious; descend the
stairs--for we quit this house for ever.”
“Whither to go?” inquired Felix.
“Far from hence, but where we shall be safe.”
“And my father?” cried Felix, half anxiously, half resentfully.
“He will _follow_ us, perhaps: but did he not strike you just now,
without provocation? why inquire about him? trust to me, my dear boy,
and let us go at once.”
Felix frowned, and blushed with indignant shame, at the recollection.
“It _was_ without provocation,” said he, and hesitated no longer.
Milborough stepped lightly towards her chamber; she wrapped herself in a
cloak which covered her entirely, and divested her dress of all
attraction; she then proceeded down stairs with almost breathless
caution. Felix followed; they reached the hall; Milborough remained a
moment to secure about her own person the jewels with which she had
loaded him, then silently unlocking the door she closed, without
venturing to shut it, and proceeded with rapid pace along the street.
As it was the height of summer, and perfectly light at an early hour,
they passed along completely unnoticed and unopposed. The object of
Milborough was to get by the quickest possible conveyance to Dover, to
arrive ere suspicion could surmise her route, and from thence embarking
for the Continent, her fears of pursuit would be at an end. In all she
had proposed, she succeeded even beyond her most sanguine speculations;
she reached Dover early, and without interruption, and a little time
after found herself in perfect safety on the shores of France. Here, for
a time, with her youthful and misguided companion, let us leave her, and
return to the wretched but justly punished Angelo.
A few hours after the departure of Milborough, he was awakened by a
violent noise; opening his heavy eyes, he found himself lying on the
floor, and the expiring flame of a taper burning in the socket and
emitting a faint irregular light through the closed apartment.
The noise which had roused him still continuing, he instinctively
started up, and hastened towards the spot from whence it seemed to
proceed: it was a loud knocking, and appeared to come from the lower
offices of the house; he followed the sound, and soon discovered that it
was occasioned by his servant, who awaking in alarm, and endeavouring to
quit his situation for the purpose of retiring to bed, found his
intention frustrated by his inability to open the door, which had been
fastened upon him; in consequence of this discovery, conceiving robbers
were, or had been in the house, in the greatest trepidation he had
essayed his utmost to make himself heard. Angelo having emancipated him,
began to recover his senses; he now clearly remembered that he had not
been in bed for the night, but could by no means reconcile to himself
why he should have been suffered to remain asleep upon the ground,
alone too, and not have been conveyed to bed. His whirling head informed
him that he had drank inordinately, and he concluded, that overpowered
with sleep, he had fallen on the floor. But as this was a circumstance
by no means unfrequent with him, and he was in such cases always
attended carefully to bed, why had he been now abandoned with this most
singular neglect and indifference?
Rage began to kindle in his bosom, and hastily he sought the chamber of
Milborough, to upbraid her in the severest terms for the impropriety of
her conduct, and the want of regard she had evinced for him. He had
questioned the servant with respect to his confinement, but receiving
from him only the most unsatisfactory replies, that he neither knew nor
could surmise, he dismissed him with intemperate revilings for his
stupidity, and hastened to the chamber of Milborough, expecting from her
explanation of this circumstance and of her own apparently unfeeling
neglect.
Entering her room, with an exclamation of reproach on his lips, he
perceived immediately that she was not there, nor had even been in bed!
For a moment, he stood amazed, then swiftly retreating, sought his own
apartment, unknowing what to expect. There the first and only object
which struck him, was his cabinet open, and its assemblage of drawers
dragged out to their fullest extent, and completely empty! At this
alarming sight involuntarily he struck his forehead with his clenched
hand, as an idea, too dreadful to indulge, glanced like lightning
through his brain! He rushed trembling towards the cabinet, examined it
nearer, brought every drawer completely forth, and cast them on the
ground, as if he desired some stronger confirmation than visual sense
could give him of the dreadful view which presented itself! It was but
too true; he found indeed that he had been plundered of all they
contained, and, aghast with horror, he stood for a moment unable even
yet to credit that he was perfectly awake.
All his gold, his jewels, even to a far greater amount, had vanished!
his dreadful situation, stern and unrelenting, was revealed before him,
and with a bitter cry, rushing from the room, he flew into every
apartment, loudly vociferating the name of Milborough, and hoping still,
in the midst of his despair, that in some remote corner of the house he
might yet discover her, even though manacled, and dying perhaps for
assistance; all, anything, but that she should have fled in a moment
like the present!
In vain he called, in vain he searched, Milborough answered not; his
fears then reverted to his son; he sought his chamber, he was not there
either, he replied not to his agonized repeated call; then sinking
overpowered on a chair, he clasped his hands in horror; the whole truth,
the fearful truth, broke without mercy and without reserve upon his
mind; no longer could he doubt _Milborough_ was his plunderer, his _son_
the companion of her flight!
While thus he remained, the servant he had with anger so unjust
dismissed, rushed into the room, and with a countenance of terror,
observed that he had discovered the door of the hall to be open, that
he apprehended the worst, but had not courage to search the house alone.
“Go, go--I know,” cried the sick and fainting Angelo, “I know
all--retire.”
The wild abstraction of his air alarmed the servant, who precipitately
obeyed, and left the room. Gloomily musing, he still remained
immoveable; ruin was certain, it could not be accumulated, nothing now
could make it more than ruin, and he felt in that state, when the mind,
conscious it has reached the climax of woe, is incapable from that
dreadful consciousness of dreading aught as an increase.
Such are the retributions the guilty experience from the guilty, such
the rewards of the libertine for yielding up his soul to meretricious
allurement, and expecting an unfeigned love and gratitude from her,
whose smiles, like the butterfly in summer, are only for the sunshine of
prosperity, and who looks forward to the hour of adversity as the season
of her harvest! on that she seizes, and faithful only to her interest,
remorselessly abandons the deluded victim on whom she has entailed
destruction.
Some time did the wretched Angelo continue thus tottering as it were on
the verge of madness, yet struggling to be reasonable; now wildly his
thoughts dwelt on Felix, his boy so fondly yet so injuriously loved. Why
had the monster robbed him of his son, his dearest treasure? Confused,
bewildered, as he was, the suggestion was obvious. She had made Felix
the companion of her flight, to evade the probability of pursuit; for
with that vile artifice peculiar to such as her, justly and cunningly
had she calculated, that however Angelo, aroused from his infatuation by
her conduct, might determine to pursue her with justice, when he
reflected that by so doing he must implicate his son, who must of
necessity have been privy to the transaction, of which too she could
adduce proof, he would abstain altogether from the attempt, anxious
rather, however deep a sufferer he might have been, to give as little
publicity as possible to the event; besides, he might hope by his
forbearance towards her, to induce her to remand voluntarily the youth
to him; whereas if he listened only to his revenge, she might not only
secrete him for ever, but through him bring dishonour upon his name.
Suddenly Angelo started up from the supineness of despair; he remembered
the obligations under which he existed, and the necessity there was for
his seeing Ellesmere that day. It was requisite he should impart to him
the whole of what had happened. With this idea pressing on his mind, he
hastily rushed from the house, but scarcely had he gained the street
than it was displaced by another, which preserved the ascendancy; his
first purpose was forgotten, the image of the unfortunate Gabrielle
stood before him. Should Ellesmere, as he was certainly entitled to do,
have waved courtesy, and promptly insisted upon his right, she might at
this moment be even destitute of a home.
Something like a sensation of horror and remorse shot through his heart;
quick as lightning he directed his steps towards the spot where she had
continued to linger, and arriving at the house, with impatient violence
assailed the door. The instant it was opened, he flew past the servant
without an inquiry, and bounding up the well known long deserted
stair-case, sought unannounced the apartment where Gabrielle usually
sat. She was not there, and he heard the voice of the servant behind
him, who informed him she was in her chamber; thither he hastily
proceeded, and bursting open the door, with wild disordered look he
stood before her.
Gabrielle, pale, emaciated, the image of settled hopeless melancholy,
lay extended upon a couch, almost too feeble to move. At the sight of
Angelo, so long estranged from her eyes, and with air and countenance
that spoke some dire ill, her weakened nerves were nearly overpowered, a
hectic blush of terror and agitation flushed her hollow cheek; not that
she dreaded for herself an accumulation of sorrow, of insult, or of
outrage, for that was impossible, but she apprehended, she knew not
what, and made an attempt to rise from her recumbent posture.
“Stay, stay,” cried Angelo with a frenzied look, laying his hand upon
her shoulder, “where would you go? remain--remain, while yet you may.”
“What!” cried the enfeebled Gabrielle, with a wild indignant look, while
the tears rushed to her eyes,--“do you come to drive me hence? Well,
well, be it so, I am ready.”
“I!--no, no; but do you not know? have you not seen Ellesmere? this
house is no longer mine.”
“What mean you, Angelo? or is this but an unworthy subterfuge to drive
me hence? Say--say openly--since it is your will; I shall endeavour to
gain strength,--to _die elsewhere_!”
She rose, and leaning on the back of the couch, like a pale spectre she
stood immoveable.
“Hear me! hear me, Gabrielle!” cried Angelo; and in the effort he made
to explain to her the truth, reason a little recovered her empire, “I
have no longer a house, nor you a home; I am become a beggar! you are so
likewise! This house, together with all I once possessed, last night
became forfeit, and now appertains to Ellesmere! Say then, have you no
pity for me, Gabrielle! can you not feel?--Pity, did I say! ah, what
would it avail to a wretch like me, ruined, ruined, past redemption!” He
sank into a chair beside him, devoid of energy, and his senses again
began to wander.
Gabrielle became sensible of renovated strength, her firm elastic mind
rose beneath oppression, with towering dignity; her faintly throbbing
heart beat quicker, her languid pulse with accelerated motion; she was
no longer feeble; with steady step she approached the nerveless Angelo,
and laying her burning hand upon his arm, she said, “Tell me, Angelo,
why in this moment have you thought of me? what have you done with
Milborough? where is my son?”
“Why question me thus?” returned Angelo without raising his eyes from
the ground, “but if you would know--where one is, there is the other
likewise; learn moreover, and triumph--both have plundered me of all,
and fled!”
Gabrielle spoke not; she raised her eyes, and lifted her fair hands to
Heaven, while the expression of her fine countenance was, “God! thou
hast punished him enough; now is it for me to sooth!” The loss of her
child conveyed an acute pang to her heart; but the youth loved her not,
and, all excellent, all amiable as she was, it was not in nature for
this reflection to be wholly without effect. Angelo she beheld before
her, in a state such as implored oblivion of his errors; her noble soul
forgave that unconquerable yet unjustifiable pride imbued in his very
nature, which, guilty as he must feel himself, had not yet permitted him
to acknowledge his culpability and sue for pardon at her feet; she knew
well his was a mind which required to be softened, rather than
reproached into submission.
In the moment of adversity, he had thought of her; she was now all he
possessed, and cruelly as he had outraged her, he did justice to the
magnanimity of her mind and feelings. He had appeared before her a
wretch weighed down with crime and misfortune. He might have yielded to
a sense of shame, and shunned her still; but no, he had humbled himself
in her sight, by permitting her to behold him thus punished, his conduct
to herself avenged, and had beseeched the pity of her whom most he had
injured.
These noble sentiments, these liberal constructions, too liberal indeed
towards Angelo, whose weakness in the hour of adversity, requiring the
aid of firm and energetic friendship, had had equal, if not superior
share in precipitating him into her presence, awakened her heart in his
favour; and with the benignity of a pitying angel she bent over him in
compassion; consolation appeared to her to have become a duty, and in a
sweet soothing voice she said,--“Angelo, arouse yourself, despair is
impious; since your situation is such as you have described, let us
consider only what remains to be done.”
Angelo raised his lurid eyes, and fixed them upon Gabrielle; he beheld a
countenance which resembled that of a sorrowing Madona, his heart was
acutely touched: “And is it from _you_ then, oh, ill-fated daughter of
Montmorency!” he cried, “is it from you that first I hear the voice of
consolation? Oh, Gabrielle! injured Gabrielle,” he added hastily,
“unless you would annihilate me at once, unless you would drive me to
distraction, speak to me in another voice! look on me with other eyes!
let your words be daggers to my heart, and let your glances be stern!”
“No, Angelo,” replied Gabrielle, “at this moment I can cherish against
you no feeling of bitterness. I am myself a wretch meriting severest
punishment, my crimes exceed yours, and I hail misfortune as salutary
chastisement, as a proof that God has not wholly abandoned me, but would
purify me for future life, of which otherwise I should be too unworthy!
If I grieve, Angelo,--if I grieve, it is--that _you_ should be the
instrument of my punishment.” Again her pale face, her humid eyes were
raised to Heaven, and she seemed wrapt in the fervour of her divine
conceptions.
“Oh, spare me! spare me, heavenly being!” cried Angelo, glancing upon
her countenance, and hastily withdrawing his conscious eyes; “sink me
not thus low, but be merciful as you are above me! Deign only to
reproach me,” he added in a voice of bitter anguish, and bursting into
tears.
Gabrielle was recalled to earth; she gazed upon her first love, upon the
destroyer of her youth, upon the murderer of her father, upon him who
had blighted his honourable hopes and her fair prospects--but she beheld
only his tears of agony--his wild dishevelled form!--she forgave her
injuries, and pressed his burning head to her bosom.
Angelo sprang from his attitude of despair to throw himself at her feet;
he embraced her knees, and kissed them with frantic ardour, and raising
his eyes to her countenance, he cried, “Gabrielle, I have betrayed,
destroyed, and brought your fair youth to destruction!--I have now
become a wretch in misery as well as crime, beggared in every present
and future hope! Dare I then say it--it is only now I feel that fully I
appreciate your exalted virtue! it is only now, when such appreciation
is but mockery to you, that it breaks upon my benighted soul, as the sun
first sheds his dazzling rays upon the sight of him who has been for
long in dreary blindness! Here then solemnly I swear to Heaven, that I
will dedicate to you the residue of my worthless existence. Gabrielle,
look down upon me, now sunk into most abject misery; I pledge myself in
the sight of the God whom through you I have offended, to make you mine
at his holy altar, should you even yet deign to accept me. I pray that
he may visit me in all the thunders of his wrath, if ever more I
deceive, abandon, or betray you.”
“Rise, Angelo,” cried Gabrielle in a mournfully solemn voice; “I accept
your penitence, and would rather become yours at this moment, than in
the height of your prosperity. But hear me, I am now childless, I have
no dear interests superior to my own that require my consideration;
above all I feel that though I should to-morrow become your wife, Heaven
would not grant me long to enjoy a title that once would have sounded so
sweetly in my ears!--I feel,--yes, I feel, that the death of my father
will be, by a just Providence, avenged upon me!--I too am dying of a
broken heart.”
Angelo uttered a loud cry; his breast became filled with remorse, and
penitence dawned upon his soul.
“Angelo!” said Gabrielle, in that tone of voice which is firm from the
long accustomed conviction of having nothing to hope, “Angelo, be
composed; since you are once again returned to me, I shall not yet die.”
Angelo could not restrain his tears; he sobbed, but Gabrielle could no
longer weep; she made no effort to check the tears of Angelo, for she
conceived that they preserved him from despair.
In the midst of this scene, the door opened, and a servant announced the
name of Ellesmere; on Angelo it operated like a thunder-clap, but
Gabrielle bade that he should be instantly admitted.
He entered with that gay and smiling air usually worn by beings of the
world, who never by any chance attempt to anticipate even a moment of
the future, enjoying and thinking only of the present. Gabrielle arose
at his entrance, and involuntarily awed by the dignified grace of her
appearance, he bowed profoundly to her, and advanced to Angelo, whom he
seized familiarly by the arm. “D’Albini,” he cried, shaking him, “I am
sorry to see you thus crest-fallen; I was in hopes you knew me better
than to compare me to a vulgar creditor, I came only now for the very
purpose of observing that I had no desire to _incommode_ you. But this
house is extremely elegant,” glancing on Gabrielle, “tastefully
arranged, the pictures all from Italy, I suppose,--ah! I recognise the
vivid landscapes of Claude Lorrain!--the masterly pencil of
Correggio!--the brilliant colouring of Domenichino!--the----”
“Sir,” cried Gabrielle, interrupting him, indignant at his loquacity,
and the apparent want of feeling displayed by Ellesmere, “the Count
D’Albini is indisposed; I have only to observe therefore for him, in
return for your polite attention that this house and all that appears to
meet your approbation, will be at your disposal by the evening.”
“Oh, by no means,” cried the man of the world, still carelessly looking
round upon the pictures, “oh, by no means; nothing on earth would tempt
me to inconvenience one of the softer sex, and particularly so fair a
creature as yourself,” bowing significantly.
“Sir,” replied Gabrielle, turning aside with dignity from his bold
expressive stare, “our arrangements are made; by this evening the house
will be yours, wholly yours,--will you for the present permit it to be
ours?”
Ellesmere was what is termed a polished gentleman; he perfectly
understood the hint of Gabrielle; and he had wit enough to perceive that
idle compliments and presumptuous admiration might offend, but could not
flatter her; bowing respectfully therefore, he moved towards the door,
and as he opened it, he said, “D’Albini, we remain _friends_, I hope, in
spite of _what has happened_!--Ah, willingly would I give all Fortune’s
favours,” directing his eyes towards Gabrielle, “to be even now situated
as you are.”
Angelo endeavoured to command his voice, his pride came to his aid, and
he replied, “Undoubtedly we remain friends, why not?”
“Give me then your hand,” cried Ellesmere, “in token of _amity_.”
With a sick smile, Angelo stretched forth his hand, and the _friend_ who
had rendered him a beggar, shook it as cordially as though he had been
asking him to dinner, bade him adieu with precisely the same smile as he
would have worn to congratulate him on some good fortune, and would have
felt as much interest in the one, as he now felt regret at the other.
No sooner had Ellesmere departed, than Gabrielle, with that prompt
energy which had ever marked her youthful character, determined to
employ the few hours that remained till evening, in the service of him
who now possessed on earth no friend but herself. For him she forgot
anguish long endured, whose baleful effects were for ever remediless,
feebleness, pain, indisposition, and this with only the most desolate
prospects before her, as the reward for her highest exertion. She
persevered nevertheless, and with an alacrity no way inferior to what
his best conduct might have claimed, adopted such measures as she
conceived best calculated for a speedy and prudential arrangement.
From Angelo she now enquired more particularly of an affair that had
been as yet but vaguely related, when it clearly appeared to her that in
saying he had lost _all_, he had not exaggerated. Under these
circumstances it was only to submit with patience to what was
unavoidable; and while Angelo, plunged anew into despair, by the detail
of the ruinous transaction in which he had been engaged, remained
incapable of action, Gabrielle, a powerful instance of the superiority
of mind over matter, was busily employing herself, feeble as she was in
body, in hastening the means of final settlement, and departure from an
abode, which no longer considering their’s, her pride revolted at
remaining in.
Since the desertion of Angelo, she had retained only a couple of
domestics in her own service; these she found herself empowered to
discharge to their satisfaction, and without their having a wish to
remain where gloomy desolation had spread her pinions and prodigality no
longer reigned. Her next consideration was to seek some shelter for the
night; it was impossible immediately to procure a situation, such as
might suit with their present circumstances; she therefore determined to
postpone this attempt till the morrow, and to avail themselves for the
present of some temporary accommodation, since to remain where they were
an hour beyond the appointed time was too repugnant to her feelings.
Thus, ere the arrival of evening, her vigorous management had arranged
every necessary step, and they were enabled to take their departure from
an abode which she at least could not view with aught of tender regret,
from a recollection of the happy hours she had of late passed within its
walls.
CHAPTER XXII.
We now behold Angelo ruined, and unnoticed by his worldly friends,
pillaged and deserted by an abandoned mistress, forsaken even by the
child he loved, forgotten and shunned in his adversity by all, save
Gabrielle, by all save her whom in his prosperity he had insulted,
injured, and betrayed. She, and she alone, was his firm sheet anchor in
the storm; his friend, his comforter, she accompanied him to a wretched
abode, far, far different indeed to those he had been accustomed to, an
abode, such as would have excited the contempt of ephemeral friends,
and which none would have entered who loved him not for himself alone.
Gabrielle entered it, and smiled like his guardian angel upon the
desolate walls; her smile was a ray of light through his bosom, it
revealed at once comfort and despair, for it showed him to himself
unworthy of the bliss of calling such a creature his!
Yet in justice to the superior soul of Gabrielle be it said, that all
benignant as she was, the compassion which she showed towards Angelo was
no longer in any degree the effect of an idolatrous love, neither could
former duties longer influence her, but it sprang from a native and
transcendent generosity; tender, forbearing and patient as she was, she
possessed a proud mind.
The primary source of her endurance in unparalleled suffering, was not
in a mean, selfish, or ignoble passion, which crouched most abject
beneath ill treatment, and which no indignities, no cruelty could alter;
not in such source did it originate, but in her duty to her children; to
bear and forbear, for _them_, she deemed not disgrace, but glorious
martyrdom! Fatal and unforeseen events had exonerated her from this
sacred and painful duty, fraught throughout with bitterness and severest
trial.
Firm and unshrinking she had bared her bosom to the darts levelled
against it; now she beheld him who had loaded her with remorse and
anguish, beheld him distressed, agonized, humbled to the dust. It was
not surely in the most abject nature still to love! it could belong only
to the most noble still to pity! Such was Gabrielle’s, she could
cherish neither hate nor revenge against him she had loved once, neither
could she still love when her firm mind had received conviction that the
object was at heart unworthy--but this precluded not pity, and she felt
it a duty incumbent on her to perform from that, all that the
profoundest and most invincible love could have dictated. Exalted was
the soul of Gabrielle, and beautiful her religion, which taught her
charity towards every one’s errors but her own.
Thus then the unhappy Angelo received from her unwearied attention; she
sought as much as possible to detach his mind from dwelling on his
situation, and exerted herself to cheer and to soothe him by such
reasoning as was suggested by the divine influence of fervent piety,
that looks not with a vain sorrow upon the afflictions of this life,
but extracts from them the sacred hope of future _better_ existence, for
which _sorrow_ best purifies the soul!
All was however vain: Angelo possessed not the towering mind of his
comforter, he could not rise superior to the influence of situation, he
felt himself a wretch within and without, surrounding circumstances
filled him with dismay, and his conscience loaded him with reproach.
Nature by degrees became overpowered, he sunk into an alarming malady,
and incapable of opposing by energy or reason that useless regret and
ceaseless repining which aggravated his disorder, he was compelled to
resort to his bed, from whence never more he expected to arise. Mean
time Gabrielle, who laboured under a malady far more dangerous than
that of Angelo, the malady of the _heart_, who had been for long
supported by her energies alone, now found it necessary doubly to exert
herself, and to become the nurse and attendant of Angelo, as she was his
only stay and hope.
It was requisite however to call in medical aid, and this, together with
the additional expences incurred by his illness, began to shew the
alarming probability that such calls might ensue as she would be
unprepared to answer.
During the desertion of Angelo her expenditure, never prodigal, had been
considerably abridged; it was owing to this circumstance that she had
been hitherto enabled to compass the difficulties that had occurred, and
to assist Angelo when he no longer possessed resources for himself. Her
rational and anticipating mind, had not failed to suggest to her, that
in order to preserve themselves from future dreadful embarrassment, it
would be necessary that some plan should be resorted to, to prolong
their present trifling means of subsistence.
The whole treasure they mutually possessed were the jewels of Gabrielle,
and a small sum in specie. These of themselves could not long suffice,
and hence the necessity conceived by Gabrielle of concerting some plan
for future support, ere the present means should be entirely exhausted.
The illness of Angelo, however, deranged and frustrated her intentions;
already she had found it requisite to part with a few of her most
inconsiderable ornaments; and learning from the physician she had
employed for him, that he conceived him in a state which would render
it prudent to call in other advice, she perceived there would exist an
inevitable occasion for parting immediately with the most valuable ones.
The recovery of Angelo being a primary object, she determined that every
consideration should yield to it, whether of calculating prudence or
otherwise. As soon therefore as the physician who, after visiting him
declared his opinion to Gabrielle, had departed, she returned into the
chamber of Angelo, and approached his bedside.
With that eager anxiety, which in sickness is naturally manifested
towards one whom experience has proved to be the only earthly being
interested in their welfare, Angelo, soon as he saw her, stretched forth
his feverish hands, and in a faint voice exclaimed, “Oh, Gabrielle,
tell me, am I to live or die?”
“Live, assuredly,” she replied with a celestial smile, and tenderly
taking his hand. The indisposition of Angelo was chiefly occasioned by
the indulgence of a useless and consuming grief, which he had neither
fortitude nor energy to repel, rather than any real bodily ailment. It
was a strong affection of the nervous system, accompanied by deep
depression of spirits and extreme irritability, which rendered his
malady more alarming than dangerous.
Frequently trifles would overcome him so much that he would burst into
tears; thus the feebleness of his mind increased his physical debility,
and rendered him incapable of the smallest exertion.
Now that he beheld Gabrielle standing beside him, and looking upon him
with that tender benignant countenance, he was suddenly struck with the
remembrance of the evils he had brought upon her, and could not avoid
contrasting his conduct with the generosity and magnanimity of her’s
toward him; the impression was too strong for his disorganized feelings,
tears rushed to his eyes, and incapable of restraining his emotion, he
sobbed aloud. Gabrielle, infinitely affected, sat beside him, and
endeavoured her utmost to sooth: by degrees she succeeded, and when she
observed him calm, she said, “Angelo, it will be requisite that for a
short time I should leave you; will you promise me that you will
endeavour to sleep? I shall then have the satisfaction of knowing that
you will not want any thing during my absence.”
“What, are _you_ going to desert me too at last?” cried he, in a
mournful voice.
“But I will return immediately; will you not trust me, Angelo?”
“And if I should die in your absence, who will care for the wretched
Angelo? who will visit his cold corpse?--no one, no. Ah! who would ever
have thought such could have been my fate?” At this he shed bitter
though silent tears, while Gabrielle almost wept to perceive such
lamentable imbecility of mind; but fearing to increase by joining in
this vain depression, she subdued her emotion, and cried, “Oh, my dear
Angelo, you must conquer these melancholy ideas; believe me it is a
weakness, wholly unworthy you. If you desire that I should not quit you
at present, most certainly I will not; yet if for a few moments you
could permit, I should rather, for sooner or later I must;--I will
procure you an attendant during my absence.”
“An attendant!” exclaimed Angelo, “what! would you leave me to the mercy
of hired wretches?--Oh, my God! let me die at once, if such is to be my
lot.”
Gabrielle, who had arisen, now patiently resumed her seat beside him;
she thought it useless and improper to irritate him by further argument,
and secretly determined that if, as she hoped, he should fall into a
slumber, she would seize that opportunity of escaping to dispose of her
jewels, and return home with all the speed in her power. Angelo remained
silent for a considerable time; Gabrielle flattered herself he was
asleep, and to ascertain, she made a gentle movement to rise.
Immediately Angelo with a violent start drew the curtains aside; his
face was pale as death, over which his dark hair hanging dishevelled,
gave him an air of wildness.
“Gabrielle! for God’s sake do not leave me yet,” he cried; “I think I
shall be better in a little time, and able to bear your absence; but
will you not inform me where you are so desirous of going?”
From the air of alarm visible in his countenance, the idea now first
struck Gabrielle that he really apprehended she intended if possible to
escape from him, and desert him. Feeling for the horror with which such
an idea must impress his weakened mind, and anxious that for a moment
even he should not continue to indulge it, she decided rather to
acknowledge to him the real object of her mission abroad, though under
other circumstances she would infinitely have preferred the concealment
of it, lest it should give to his heart a pang she could spare him.
Looking at him with a smile therefore, she said, “Since you are so
desirous of knowing my motive, I will not disguise it from you, and then
I hope you will have no further hesitation at parting with me for a few
moments. I have some jewels, which are altogether useless to me, in our
present state--my object is to dispose of them, as--as I have occasion
for money.”
Angelo with a sudden spring raised his weak frame in the bed; he fixed
his eyes upon Gabrielle with a wild stare, his features were convulsed,
and in a faltering voice he said, “What--what jewels do you mean?”
“I will shew them to you,” answered Gabrielle, wishing to divert his
emotion, which she attributed solely to the sad necessity she had
inferred of parting with her jewels, and rising, she approached a small
trunk in the room, from which she took those she had intended to dispose
of, and brought them to Angelo. The instant he cast his eyes upon them
he uttered a groan of anguish, his lips quivered, he clasped his hands
together, and sinking back, he faintly murmured “They are false!--they
are false!”
“False!” cried Gabrielle, who beheld with horror, if Angelo spoke
reason, her best hopes destroyed; “False, said you?”
“Oh! yes, yes,” groaned the agonised Angelo, “_I robbed_ you of yours,
and placed those in their stead! I----” Overcome by his terrible
feelings, he made a frenzied attempt to spring from the bed, and cast
himself upon the floors the feeble strength of Gabrielle opposed itself
to his, she with difficulty retained him in bed, and in a state of
insensibility his beating head fell heavy upon the pillow.
Alone, unaided, Gabrielle applied herself to his restoration; by degrees
he recovered from apparent death, but it was only to vent in delirium
his weakened powers; he raved aloud--he inflicted blows upon his
shattered frame; and the overpowered Gabrielle, finding it longer
impossible to cope with him, beheld herself under the painful necessity
of calling in other aid; and absolutely exhausted, Angelo at length
fell into a sleep, deep and profound as the sleep of the tomb.
Gabrielle seized that opportunity of leaving the room for a moment, and
without quitting the house, found she could procure for him an
attendant, one of those persons who, in offering their services for the
sick, have no other idea than of the emolument to be thus derived, and
whose sources of livelihood are in the misfortunes, sickness, and
distress of others. This being, Gabrielle was however glad upon any
terms to hire, and every step she took convinced her more and more of
the necessity there existed of obtaining some speedy means of compassing
her encreased expences.
As the mind of Angelo could not at this juncture be considered in a
state of sanity, the introduction of a stranger into his apartment
could excite no unpleasant feelings.
With a heavy heart, Gabrielle then proceeded to gather together such
other ornaments as she still possessed, and made a selection from them
of those she considered most valuable, and capable of supplying present
exigencies. Reluctantly then resigning to the care of the attendant the
still sleeping Angelo, she hastily departed to dispose of them the best
she could.
Unfortunately for her, however, she discovered that the worst possible
period of attempting to obtain money, is precisely that in which it is
most needed. Those to whom she applied, easily perceived, that though
she wished to obtain for her jewels the utmost that she could, in
default of obtaining what she wished, she must of necessity take what
she could procure; this was enough, the extremity so dreadful for her,
was their harvest, and that advantage was unfeelingly reaped from her
distress, which perhaps had not otherwise been thought of; for one half
of the world lives and flourishes by the misfortunes or follies of the
other half. Thus she was compelled to accept a fourth part only of what
she had flattered herself with easily obtaining, and returned to her
chearless home with a heavier heart than she had left it, and her mind
filled with gloomiest forebodings of the future.
At length the physicians who had been called in, either in compassion
for the evident embarrassment of her situation, or under apprehension
that their attendance and advice must ultimately remain unpaid,
informed her that they had ascertained the malady of Angelo to arise
solely from an undue irritation of the nerves, that it was more of the
mind than of the body, consequently irremediable by the art of medicine,
and that they therefore could be of no further service.
Such being the decision of the physicians, Gabrielle was once more
determined to undertake alone the charge and restoration of Angelo; she
dismissed, therefore, the attendant she had temporarily hired, (who in
daily expectation of his death had anticipated from the anguish of
Gabrielle, and her consequent indifference to worldly matters, no
inconsiderable booty, of which she was thus disappointed,) and enacted
herself at once into nurse, physician, and attendant, and by her
judicious management and tender care had soon the happiness of beholding
Angelo in a gradual state of amendment.
He recovered perfectly his reason, and his body being so much
debilitated by sickness, he was no longer subject to paroxysms of
delirium. In a short time he became enabled to quit his bed for several
hours in the course of the day, and ultimately to forsake it altogether.
But this change was not produced by magic, it cost the patient
persevering Gabrielle infinite pain, distress of mind, and the privation
of almost every comfort in existence; her care was unremitting,
indefatigable, she scarcely slept by night, or rested during the day,
and intent on procuring for Angelo every nourishment that might restore
his strength, she almost forgot to take any for herself, and remembered
to do so only, when her failing powers informed her, that in order to
support him, it was necessary she should support herself.
But the time was now arrived when the sufferings of Gabrielle were to
exceed all she had hitherto experienced. Till this period, though want
had gleamed in perspective upon them, and well she knew that it must
approach, if some means of keeping it at a distance were not devised,
still want in perspective, and immediate want, are widely different, for
the one is only imagined, while the other is felt; one excites
apprehension, and the other despair.
Gabrielle had now parted with every article of value she possessed; next
she had parted with all which the most rigid necessity did not compel
her to retain, and now having nothing more left which might be bartered
for subsistence, she with a shudder beheld that the gaunt fiend was
rapidly approaching, and that if exertion were not instantly made to
elude its fell grasp, soon it would overpower them.
Yet it was not for herself that Gabrielle felt or shuddered; to her,
death would have been but a transition from perpetual misery to eternal
peace, she would have hailed it with joy, embraced it with eagerness;
but for the sufferings of another, she had not fortitude to die! all her
anxiety was for Angelo, all her indifference for herself.
As Angelo was however now so much restored both in mind and body, he
would permit her to leave him sometimes, and even with patience endure
her absence. Thus when Gabrielle beheld that their means were so rapidly
decreasing, and that ere long they must completely cease, she one day
quitted him with the resolution of not returning till she had obtained
some mean of certain subsistence, and to shrink from nothing, not in
itself dishonourable, that might enable her yet a little longer to
support with the forsaken Angelo the burthen of existence.
With this purpose therefore settled in her mind, though undecided as to
the mode of pursuing it, she wandered along the populous streets, musing
as she went, unobserved, or if observed, unnoticed; for her air bespoke
unhappiness, and her attire poverty, appearances not calculated
certainly to attract the pleasure-seeking eyes of the world. Who,
indeed, need apprehend officious observation that under _such_
circumstances wanders forth!
Passing a print shop, accidentally she raised her eyes; she beheld in
the window a various assortment of drawings, so placed as to strike the
beholder to the best advantage; involuntarily she stopped, for she had
an exquisite taste in drawing, which the departed Montmorency had
delighted to cherish and improve, and an idea had flashed across her
mind that induced her hastily to approach the window: she inspected the
prints, and a modest sense of her own superior powers in designing and
colouring such subjects as were before her, consisting chiefly of
flowers, caused her pale cheek to mantle with a conscious blush, and
yielding to the sudden impulse which actuated her, timidly she entered
the shop.
The cold money-getting face of the man within damped in an instant her
rising hopes and deranged her ideas. She was aroused however by the
complaisant inquiry of what she desired, and forcing herself by an
effort to overcome the emotion of shame, so naturally felt by a noble
mind when for the first time it beholds itself in the novel situation of
dependance, she faltered out an intimation that she would be happy to be
employed in that branch of his merchandise which consisted in flower
painting. She stopped, and the unusual throbbing of her heart informed
her, that for the first time she had asked _a favour_!
From the obsequious, kind and smiling countenance of the man who sells
his goods, and _receives_ for them money, this person’s changed suddenly
to the proud, consequential, and imposing countenance of the man who
purchases, and _gives_ money; for there is a wide difference with beings
of this description, between the act of receiving even the merest
trifle, and that of giving it; the first still leaves them in the rank
of the person obliged, the latter places them in the important and
unusual light of having conferred a favour.
Of these opposite positions the person whom Gabrielle addressed was
perfectly sensible; he therefore in a careless and familiar tone replied
that he had no objection to oblige her if she was in _distress_, though
he had already more applications than he could attend to, and more hands
than he knew how to employ; he concluded by observing that the
difficulties of the times were great, and that he could not undertake to
promise any great consideration for the very best style of painting.
All this the proud daughter of Montmorency bore, for she felt that her
purpose was good: the difficulty of compassing that which required to be
done, always strung her energies anew; she acceded therefore to the hard
terms and mercenary stipulations of the shopkeeper, with an anguished
smile, and returned home with employment sufficient for several days.
Gabrielle was again in a novel situation, that of labouring for a
livelihood; still she acquitted herself, as hitherto she had done, to
admiration. “Oh! spirit of my father!” would she ejaculate, “could’st
thou look down from thy bright abode, thou would’st not disapprove;
_this_ would not have vexed thy mortal pride to heart-breaking, for in
this there is _no dishonour_!”
As she reflected that had she at this juncture been reduced to absolute
want without the means of procuring even the morrow’s meal, Providence
would thus have assisted her, and warded the horrors of such a day; she
felt her heart glow with gratitude to the throne of beneficence, and
with a pleasure such as for long she had not experienced.
Thus are we ever the creatures of immediate predicament; the
circumstance which at one time to anticipate might have overwhelmed with
despair, proves in its occurrence at another a source of rejoicing;
events take their hue from the moment, and are only good or bad
according to their comparative relations. Who could have imagined that
the talents of Gabrielle, cultivated beneath the tender care and elegant
instructions of her father, would ever have availed her as a mean of
livelihood, or that she should consider herself fortunate in procuring
with difficulty the opportunity of rendering them such? Yet thus it was,
though only a few years back she would have viewed the bare possibility
of present certainty with horror almost staggering belief.
Reaching home, Gabrielle applied with alacrity to her task, and, such is
the divine effect of energy, felt even her mind lightened by such
application, though confessedly for bread, and diverted from the
contemplation of surrounding ills. But Angelo was incapable of
emulating her, incapable even of attempting to do so; he could only gaze
with wonder and admiration, without being animated by a portion of her
heavenly fire; so true it is that great minds only can bear adversity.
Gabrielle, though thus she laboured and exerted herself more for the
benefit of the unhappy imbecile Angelo than for herself, endeavoured,
with her genuine delicacy, to disguise that it was absolutely for
support that she did so; she worked with cheerfulness, and sought rather
to impress upon his mind that it was chiefly for amusement she thus
occupied herself.
She dreaded he should feel that he depended upon her for subsistence,
and her superior soul shrank from weighing him down with such a sense of
obligation, and from a gratitude that, far from pleasing, would have
distressed and shocked her.
But Angelo could not be for ever thus deceived; he beheld the incessant
toil of this noble but unfortunate being; he beheld too that it was for
him she toiled; the sense of his own unworthiness pressed heavy on his
heart, and while it filled him with a profound melancholy, still further
incapacitated him from what he would have considered a fruitless
exertion to cope with or join his efforts to hers.
Often would he gaze upon the downcast, pale, and fading countenance, to
which the gay flower she was painting and decking with all the animation
of nature, formed, as it bloomed beneath her hand, a garish contrast.
Often would he consider that while calling into artificial life by the
magic of her pencil the frailest productions of nature, she was herself
withering fast into real decay, perishing while she bade them bloom.
Often then would he burst involuntarily into a passion of tears, throw
himself at her feet, seize her wan hands, kiss them, and regard her with
an anguish that defied the power of words.
In the mean time, however, the most active exertions could not balance
her expences: as Angelo appeared still declining, she could not resist
the desire of procuring for him every delicacy that she conceived likely
to tempt or allure his sickly appetite, and though she lived upon the
coarsest fare, and would not allow herself even a sufficiency of that,
still daily she found her means becoming more and more inadequate, for
though a miser, she was such to herself alone.
One evening that she was as usual busily employed, she felt a sudden
weakness coming over her, her eyes grew dim, her head giddy, her
trembling fingers relaxed their hold of the pencil, and unable to
conquer the overpowering sensation, she sunk back in her chair.
Angelo, terrified, flew to her assistance; she made an effort, and with
a languid smile entreated him not to be alarmed; scarce had she uttered
the words, ere her heavy head, in which a thousand bells seemed
jingling, dropped upon his shoulder, and her senses fled.
Now was Angelo compelled to exert himself; he took her in his arms and
placed her on the bed, chafed her sunken temples and cold hands, shed
over her torrents of tears, and in bitter anguish accused himself of
having murdered the most angelic being upon earth; but had he known the
true cause of Gabrielle’s indisposition, what then would have been his
sensations, what his self-reproaches? The truth was, that intent as
usual upon Angelo, and regardless of herself, she had expended almost
the whole of the trifling sum she had in the morning obtained, in the
purchase of a delicacy of which she knew Angelo to be extremely fond; it
was however expensive as it was rare, and Gabrielle determined not to
partake of it, that the gratification might be prolonged to Angelo.
Yet how evade his earnest persuasions? The idea suggested itself of
affecting that she had taken refreshment while abroad, and was incapable
of accepting more, though at the same time nothing had been further
from her intentions, as such she would have deemed wanton expenditure,
after having already gone far beyond what her slender means might
authorize; and she promised herself that she should find no
inconvenience in dispensing with an occasional meal, as long as by so
doing she could procure some indulgences for Angelo.
But Gabrielle, neither apprehending, nor respecting the delicacy of her
nature, acted more in conformity to its spirit than to its strength. In
considering only the first, she over rated the last, and from dispensing
in the commencement with one meal less a day, and sensible of no
immediate injury, she next dispensed with two, and ultimately often with
any. This was one of those days on which she had not tasted food, and
had been without from an early hour on the day preceding. She had
walked, exerted herself, added by various efforts to her exhaustion, and
had ventured without allowing herself the smallest refreshment, to
resume, as soon as other cares had been completed, her occupation.
Nature however was no longer capable of enduring such cruel imposition,
and sunk beneath the extraordinary efforts she required from it.
When by degrees she recovered from her swoon, she, became sensible of
the cause that had induced it, and yielded to the entreaties of Angelo
that she would take a little of the wine she had procured for him, which
was one of those luxuries she still persisted in obtaining for him, and
ever as resolutely refused to partake of. For the present however she
consented to relax in a slight degree the severity of her laws against
herself, and, as Angelo supported her in his arms, accepted from his
hand a small portion of the wine, which considerably revived her, and
she became enabled to rise from the bed, but still so much enfeebled as
to be under the necessity of abstaining more reluctantly from her
employment, though she was sufficiently imprudent to hazard the
attempt.
CHAPTER XXIII.
From this period Gabrielle grew daily worse, yet determined to persevere
till the power of doing so should utterly forsake her. She disregarded
the strong and faithful warnings of nature, which on every exertion,
however trifling, appeared on the point of being overpowered, and still
pressed and goaded it beyond its capability of endurance. She felt a
rapid internal waste, her strength failing, and every indubitable
symptom of hastening decay.
The origin of her malady was certainly in the mind; now its baleful
effects had communicated to her body in an alarming degree; the least
movement fatigued her, to bend over her employment caused a pain at her
chest, amounting to suffocation, to walk was an effort scarcely
endurable, and her only moments of comparative ease were when for a few
hours she allowed herself in a recumbent posture to seek the benefit of
repose.
She now became so extremely feeble, and was so frequently obliged to
intermit her occupation, that she clearly perceived she must speedily
relinquish it altogether. On this subject however she was spared
consideration; for having one morning, with infinite pain, dragged her
weary limbs as far as the residence of her employer, for the purpose of
conveying home the fruits of her labour; the unfeeling being, upon
receiving them from her, looked coldly in her languid countenance, and
carelessly observed that she seemed going into a consumption, and too
ill to work.
The unfortunate Gabrielle, shocked at this cruel remark, shrank back,
yet timidly replied, “that such light work could not possibly injure any
one;” ill, dying as she was, she thought of the feeble Angelo, and still
was anxious to preserve for him the means of procuring a slender
subsistence.
“That’s no concern of mine,” replied the man, in answer to her
observation, “all I know is, you work too slow for me, and I can’t pay
you above half price any longer.”
Gabrielle answered not, for though she despised the brutality of the
man, she easily perceived that remonstrance must be lost upon him, and
that he was one of those vilely selfish beings who have no other idea
than that of trafficking with distress, and think all fair that may be
reaped from the urgent necessities of the unfortunate: she did not
therefore notice his insinuation, for well she knew the pain and labour
which it cost her to compleat what she did for the miserable
consideration which she received; to have performed it for any thing
beneath that, much less half, as this being had intimated, would, she
felt, have been absolutely useless. Stretching forth her fair hand
therefore, she accepted the wretched pittance which was her due, and
without deigning to utter a syllable, left the shop.
Now was her situation indeed dreadful; she saw that want must speedily
overtake them, that nothing could delay its rapid strides; she entered
their sad abode with tottering steps, and a heavy heart, almost
incapable of further exertion, had she even retained her employment.
Angelo was dismayed at her appearance; she looked the chill image of
breathing death, or like some shadowy phantom bearing the false
semblance of life and reality.
In tender accents he enquired the cause of her seeming anguish; for
though her pallid aspect was familiar to him, there was an expression of
distress in it at present, such as, owing to her perpetual exertions to
appear cheerful in his presence, he had not for long so evidently
perceived.
Her fortitude half succumbing at the sad prospect she now anticipated
for Angelo, she looked in his face with the wish to smile, but burst
into tears.
“Ah, tell me, beloved Gabrielle, what has happened!” exclaimed Angelo.
“Nothing, nothing, poor Angelo; nothing has happened, but the time is at
length arrived--we must starve together!”
Angelo, who had scarcely during this period of distress experienced
aught which could be termed privation, and whose mind therefore could
not be like Gabrielle’s, familiarised to the idea of want, remained for
a moment stupified with horror at her words, and the manner in which she
had uttered them.
“Wretch that I am!” at length he exclaimed, striking his forehead with
his hand, “wretch that I am, and monster! it is I, who have caused all
this! Oh! Gabrielle, Gabrielle, on my head rest your sufferings, on my
head will be your death.”
“Not so, Angelo,” faintly cried Gabrielle, “accuse not yourself, neither
give way to despair; consider, dear friend, situated as we are,
existence is rather painful than pleasing; if you then can with calmness
bring your mind to the idea of its surrender, wherefore should we
grieve, since passing from this state cannot fail to be a transition to
a better? But for you, long, long had I anticipated that era with hope,
as now I view it without regret.”
But Angelo possessing not the fortitude of Gabrielle, could not reason
like, nor think with her; life, however bitter, was preferable in his
estimation to death, the idea of which, as usually to weak minds it is,
was terrible to him, viewed with repugnance and dismay. He cast himself
in despair upon the ground, and could offer no consolation to her who
had so long veiled from his eyes, though fully revealed to her own, the
picture of horror now displayed before them. Oppressed by the strong
power of imagination, already he fancied the hand of death upon him, and
again were the waning powers of the hapless Gabrielle exerted to restore
him to firmness and better thoughts.
The first transports of despair over, urged by the pious counsels and
elevated reasonings of the half-sainted Gabrielle, Angelo, gradually
animated by a slight portion of her divine enthusiasm, acquired the
power to contemplate without shrinking the scene before him. He beheld
indeed that the best hope now was death bringing a speedy termination of
their remediless woes; it was death in its apprehension, rather than the
settled thought of death, which appalled him; it was its slow approach
which he dreaded--the pang of seeing it advance, that he wished to be
spared, and he prayed in his heart that it might overtake him suddenly,
and without warning, or that in unconscious slumber, his trembling soul
might pass into eternity.
The day at length dawned upon the wretched pair, when not only their
means of procuring further subsistence were totally at an end, but when
they had not even sustenance to support them through it--not even a
single slender meal. This was indeed a day of horror for Angelo--to
Gabrielle, of pious resignation, firm hope, and blissful anticipation of
a future, better state.
Till now Angelo had resembled the mariner in the storm, who to the last
moment indulges hope, nor amid the crashing wreck resigns it, till
dismayed he sees rushing towards him the mountainous surge which must
envelop him in its fathomless bosom. So till this day, vainly, weakly
and unreasonably, had Angelo indulged the fond hope of some unforeseen
event, some blest occurrence to turn the tide of fate, and preserve him
from the catastrophe, so dreadful and incredible to his mind, of
perishing from want.
Yet this fatal day had already dawned, and no symptoms of an approaching
delivery had appeared--it advanced unvarying--evening arrived--they
gazed at each other in silence--night followed, and as the darkness
spread around them, Angelo started from the fixed attitude of despair in
which he had been gazing on Gabrielle, and clasping his hands together,
exclaimed, “Now indeed have I lost all hope, the crisis of our fate
rapidly approaches, God enable us to meet it with courage;” then in a
deep gloomy voice he pursued, “Gabrielle, canst thou bear my head upon
thy knee? I could sleep--wilt thou then pray, that from the arms of
sleep, gently I may pass into those of death!”
“Come then, my dear friend,” cried Gabrielle, “so be it; for myself, I
will not sleep--my crimes have been great at the bar of heaven; I would
employ my last moments in endeavouring to prepare my guilty soul for
its examination, and praying of the Almighty to judge it with mercy.”
Angelo threw himself at her feet, he laid his head upon her lap, and
covered his eyes with her hand, as if desirous to shut out for ever all
earthly objects, and be spared the _pang_ of death.
Soon as he wished, deep sleep overpowered him. The apartment was in
gloomy darkness--yet the inspired soul of Gabrielle saw light--her
thoughts ascended to eternity, and revelled in the infinity of space. In
the heaven of heavens she fancied she beheld her father, that he looked
down smiling upon her, and with outstretched arms, and in a voice which
seemed to her rapt ears as the music of the spheres, said, “Come, my
Gabrielle, all is forgiven.” In visions like these did she pass the
night, sleep visited not her eyes, neither did she wish it. Morning
dawned, Angelo started suddenly from his slumber, and springing up,
exclaimed in a wild voice, “Oh, my God! do I then still live!”
“Be not impatient, my friend,” said Gabrielle; “but if thou hast
strength, bear me to the bed, that I may die there, for of myself I have
not power to move.”
Angelo, who was somewhat refreshed by sleep, bore the enfeebled
Gabrielle in his arms to the bed, and seated himself beside her. This
day the sun shone upon them, but its splendour was mockery; Gabrielle
gazed not on it through humility, for she wished not that its cheering
beams should exhilarate her soul, or recall her to earthly pleasure,
while Angelo closed _his_ eyes upon the brilliant visitant in the
bitterness of an impatient despair.
Hour after hour rolled on; the dusk of evening again advanced, a sense
of pain from long abstinence began to be acutely felt; their sufferings
by the most terrible of deaths were necessarily protracted, and
gradually increased, while their termination was contemplated, by the
one with an invincible fortitude, by the other with sensations of an
indescribable horror that amounted almost to madness!
The light was now such that they could merely distinguish each other.
Gabrielle in a faint voice murmured to Angelo, to raise her head from
the pillow. Trembling with anguish and alarm, he obeyed, conceiving
from the tone of her voice that her last moments were approaching. He
supported her in his arms, she rested her head upon his shoulder, and
gazed on him, though without speaking, with a grateful placid smile. She
laid her spread hand upon her heart, her eyes of celestial blue were
raised upwards with an animated expression, her countenance was that of
a saint inspired with a holy fervour, while her soul seemed gently
passing like a breath from earth to heaven!
Angelo looked upon her with the wild aspect of moody terrible despair,
on perceiving that he must still survive, yet with an anxious wish that
her fleeting breath might be delayed till his might mingle with it, and
their souls together pass the threshold of mortal life; for he dreaded
the thought of dying as it were unprotected in his last moments, so
tremblingly did he hang on Gabrielle, even in death.
While thus they remained in each other’s arms, a slight noise was heard
at their door. Gabrielle, whose thoughts had already parted from earth,
wished not that they should be recalled to it; she desired to die; and
to return to life and to the world, would have been a painful effort;
she heeded not therefore the noise, either by look or movement.
Mean time it was repeated, but with increased violence. Angelo started
involuntarily; it continued still louder, for their door had been
secured, that no one might intrude upon or witness their anguish and
distress. The attention of Gabrielle was dragged again to earth, she
made a faint movement, Angelo laid her head gently upon the pillow, and
fast as his debilitated limbs would allow, approached the door, opened
it, and in a voice almost inarticulate from passion struggling with
weakness, he cried, “Who dare intrude here! and interrupt our last
moments!” at the same time staring wildly upon the intruder, and holding
the door in his hand, as if unwilling he should enter.
“D’Albini!” cried a voice that recalled itself to the mind of Angelo, “I
perceive you know me not; I have, however, letters and papers of
consequence for you, which I could deliver into your hands alone: with
the utmost difficulty, after having been several days in search of you,
I have been so fortunate as to trace you; and if I judge aright, you
will find in the packet I bring something to reconcile you to my
apparently unwelcome intrusion.”
Angelo now perfectly recognised the voice of an old associate, but his
travelled heart shrunk from contact with him, and in faltering accents
he replied, his native pride still operating, “This is no place for you,
it is the chamber of misery, of death!--I will dispense with your
entrance, you can have no papers, no letters that _now_ concern me.”
“Pardon me,” returned Fitzarden, “and allow me a word only, to convince
you to the contrary. Ellesmere is no more, he expired by a wound
received in a duel from his most _intimate friend_, who had attempted to
seduce his mistress: no sooner was he given to understand that he could
not survive, than he sent for me, and reverting to his unfortunate
transaction with yourself, the whole of which he had before related to
me, he confessed that in that awful moment he felt the bitterest
remorse, from the reflection of having, as he feared, completely ruined
you, since you had suddenly vanished, no one knew whither; and that he
could not die easy, unless he made you restitution of the whole of what
he had obtained from you on that memorable night, and at every former
period. “Promise me, Fitzarden,” he added, “that you will not neglect my
dying request, that you will not rest till you have discovered his
retreat, and re-instated him in the full possession of his own. I
faithfully promised; he lived to see the requisite instrument executed,
which was to confirm you in the possession of your right, and then
expired in comparative tranquillity--though deeply deploring his
manifold errors, yet in the hope that he had retrieved at least the
effects of one most baleful.” Fitzarden concluded; Angelo endeavoured
to speak, hope had dawned upon his soul, and with it had returned, more
strongly than ever, the desire of life.
The attempt, however, that he had made to speak, from the confusion of
ideas that pressed upon his mind, and his extreme debility, overpowered
him. He staggered towards the bed, where the silent Gabrielle still lay;
he essayed to express himself to her, but could not; the words
evaporated in a hollow murmur, and he sunk exhausted on the bed.
Fitzarden, now considerably alarmed, called aloud for lights and some
assistance.
Angelo was presently restored, though appearing in a state of the utmost
debility; but for the unhappy Gabrielle, her last hour seemed to have
arrived, and it was considered almost a forlorn hope to summon the
immediate aid of a physician.
Without making enquiry, the situation of his former gay companion was
sufficiently evident to Fitzarden; he clearly perceived that he was
reduced to the most abject distress, and as he cast his eyes around the
cold desolate apartment, he could not avoid contrasting it in his mind
with the sumptuous dwellings in which formerly he had been accustomed to
behold him. The view of the dreadful change produced by a fatal
indiscretion, struck a salutary terror to the heart of the young man,
and he started to reflect that his own habits were at this period such
precisely as D’Albini’s had long been: thus reverting to self, and what
might be his own fate, he felt his commiseration increase for the
unhappy beings before him.
A physician now arrived, and was conducted instantly to Gabrielle; he
felt her pulse, looked in her death-like countenance, on which the
finger of want had imprinted traces deep as those of sorrow, and
pronounced with an unusual delicacy and sincerity, that her malady was
the result of intense exhaustion, and that nourishment, not medicine,
was alone capable of restoring her.
At this declaration, however compassionately veiled, that the tender and
angelic Gabrielle was expiring from want, Angelo, unable to restrain his
acute emotion, burst into tears. Such was the anguish of his feelings,
that but for immediate assistance he would have sunk into a state worse
far than that from which he had just been recovered.
Despair and eternal repining had made on his countenance a havoc almost
equal to that which want and hidden anguish had made in that of
Gabrielle; and again as Fitzarden pressed him to take some wine, he
gazed upon his sunken cheeks, and hollow eyes, and could not avoid
remembering the gay hours when, glowing in the bloom of health and
careless vivacity, they had pledged each other in repeated goblets, not,
as now, to restore exhausted nature, but to sink it rather in enfeebling
sensuality, or, plunging into the vice of prodigal excess, to fit
themselves for pursuits that sober reason could not have tolerated.
Some exhilarating cordial having been administered to Gabrielle, she
once more opened on the light her faintly beaming eyes.--Angelo
supported her in his trembling arms; while Fitzarden, in whose soul the
scene before him awakened feelings which he was unconscious of
possessing, and whose mind was impressed with the most delicate respect
for Gabrielle, joined his entreaties to those of Angelo, and earnestly
besought her to take some nourishment.
Gabrielle found herself compelled to yield; the cup of existence was
again presented to her lips, she wished not to taste of it, for her sad
mind foreboded that as heretofore the sweets that it might contain,
would bear no proportion to the bitter with which they would be mingled;
yet to repel life was equal to the crime of seeking death; she
remembered that she was the creature of her Creator, and as her piety
had given her the resignation to die, it now inspired her with the
fortitude to live.
She recovered by degrees; with her Angelo recovered likewise, for he saw
that for this time he should be spared the remorse of beholding her die
for _him_. His was not a mind to anticipate distant events, neither to
dive deeply into remote origins, or causes; the simple position of not
having to accuse himself at this juncture of the death of her who had
sacrificed so much for him, who had famished that he might feast--to be
spared a reflection so bitter, so accusing, was of itself sufficient to
exhilarate his soul, while the idea, then shining forth in added lustre,
of his fair future prospects, conveyed a feeling of renovated bliss.
Fitzarden would not leave them till he beheld them in a state widely
different from that in which he had found them; Angelo, ever easily
depressed, now animated to a pitch of extravagance, while a feeling of
pleasure at _his_ joy, chastened by her stronger reason, shone through
the lovely mind of Gabrielle, as the mild light of the soul, or like a
tempered sun-beam diffusing around a soft and tender brilliancy.
Fitzarden promised to return on the following day, but previous to his
visiting them, to arrange for their reception an abode somewhat
different to that which they at present occupied.
“But was not this good enough to _die_ in!” observed Gabrielle to
Fitzarden, as he rose to depart.
“I know not that,” answered Fitzarden, who involuntarily gazed on her
with admiration; “for such a being as _you_ it was not even good enough
to die in; yet indeed,” added he, “virtues like yours are of themselves
independent, requiring neither living pomp nor mausoleum!”
“Who talks of death!” cried Angelo, with a laugh,--“it must be life,
beloved Gabrielle, long and happy life, for both you and me!”
The feelings of Gabrielle told her a less flattering tale, but she
faintly smiled in compliment to the wild hopes of the sanguine Angelo.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A few days now beheld them re-instated in all their former comforts,
such at least as depended upon ease and affluence alone: but while other
subsequent sufferings had diminished in the mind of Angelo the feeling
of deep sorrow for the loss of a son, and then again by an unexpected
deliverance from those sufferings, made him almost forget the evil in
the good, the heart of the sensible Gabrielle fondly yearned after her
children, in anxious conjecture of their fate, and in the eager desire
to behold them ere she died; for sadly she foreboded that if this
period did not soon arrive, speedily must she resign the lingering hope.
And well and truly did she forebode; that tender and susceptible soul
had received a cureless wound, which time might aggravate indeed, but
which it was powerless to heal. Great and terrible, even from early
youth, had been her sufferings, almost unintermitting; one misfortune
had been succeeded by another, and each more dreadful than the last.
Those blows which render some hearts callous from their frequency, had
lacerated her’s beyond recovery; yet it was not that she wanted firmness
to repel, but she had likewise sensibility acutely to feel.
Such, such on a virtuous, delicate, and sensible mind, are the
consequences of early error, deeply, unceasingly, yet unavailingly
deplored.
Now that Angelo was restored to the rank he had formerly held in
society, he determined to renew to Gabrielle the offer of his hand; for
his vices were in consequence of the weakness of his heart, and not of
its depravity--of the insufficiency of his reason to direct him right,
and not of his desire to do ill. He reverted therefore with complacency
to the idea of making Gabrielle his wife, and with that pleasure which
never fails to accompany in a mind not utterly depraved the desire of
retrieving in some degree the faults that have been committed, he felt,
with becoming emotion, how little was this late and insufficient
compliment calculated to recompense in the thousandth part, the conduct
she had pursued towards him.
He seized therefore the earliest opportunity of fulfilling his intention
and in justice to him be it said, with a faltering and confusion
resulting from the consciousness of how much earlier he should have made
the tender of that name and title, she had ever equally as now deserved.
“When I was young and foolish, Gabrielle,” said he, “I knew not your
worth; I outraged, injured, and insulted you: when I became beggared in
fortune as in happiness, I felt a wretch so wholly unworthy of you, that
to have then pressed upon you the offer of my hand, would have merited
that you should reject it with contempt; but now that I am no longer in
adversity, though bettered by the lessons it has taught me, and capable
from the point of view in which it has revealed your excellencies of
appreciating, though not yet equal to your merit, the heavenly treasure
I possess in you; now if you will suffer me by repentance and future
care to expiate in a slight degree my past errors towards you, then,
beloved Gabrielle, will you give me but one more proof of the
superiority of your nature, even in that difficult task, the forgiveness
and oblivion of injury.”
Gabrielle gave her hand to Angelo in token of acquiescence: confused
ideas pressed upon her mind, she wished not to damp his animation, nor
the hope which sparkled in his eyes, fondly bent upon her, by giving
them utterance; therefore looking with kindness on him, she remained
silent, while she admitted without pain to her mind the conviction that
long she should not live to possess by name, what in a superior degree
she had ever been in character.
Angelo was permitted to fix an early day for the ceremony of rendering
Gabrielle his wife; he desired to invite the whole of his friends (so
esteemed) resident in England, to witness what he termed the celebration
of his day of triumph; but from this public display the pride and
delicacy of Gabrielle shrunk repugnant, knowing too well that it would
be considered by others the day of _her_ triumph! It was enough for her
to receive in secret the tardy avowal of her merits; the mortification
of having been so long unappreciated, or deemed unworthy, and of
accepting at length what had been ever due to her, was by her deemed no
proud triumph; to be exhibited before idle witnesses, who could neither
feel nor understand, none either, but the contrary. In secret had been
her sufferings, her injuries, and indignities; of the atonement which it
was proposed to make for them she had her own sentiments, and she
determined that secret too should be her acceptance of it.
The day now drew nigh on which the marriage was fixed to take place.
Gabrielle, still languid, feeble, and becoming daily more exhausted,
reclined upon a couch from morning until night, and on the arrival of
the day, she was so ill as to be incapable of the least exertion.
Angelo with his usual impatience was wild at the idea of being under the
necessity of postponing the ceremony, which Gabrielle no sooner
perceived than in order to tranquillize him, she declared her
determination that no indisposition on her part should retard it.--It
took place accordingly; she received his vows and gave him hers in
return; and Angelo, as he embraced, and hailed her by the name of wife,
experienced a felicity purer and more extatic than ever had been
afforded him by the highest gratification of meretricious passion.
Such is the power of virtue over the heart, that even a long course of
vice will not render us wholly invulnerable to its divine influence; yet
if indeed there be a human being so far sunk in depravity, as to prove
an exception to this remark, lamentable indeed must be his state.
But the performance of a sacred ceremony had no power to call back to
Gabrielle her departed health; it had no more power over her weakened
body than over her towering mind her; fearful malady continued to
increase, and she appeared but as a fair anatomy, the shadow of her
former self. Angelo, who perceived that of all his worldly friendships
Gabrielle had alone remained by him in the hour of adversity, viewed her
at length as she had always merited to be viewed, and could not
contemplate the possibility of losing her, without feelings little short
of distraction.
Now as the prospect of her danger increased, his anguish and his fears
increased likewise; he ransacked the kingdom for advice, he collected
around him a host of doctors: all proved vain; and in despair of the
power of medicine, he yielded with the eagerness of a last hope to the
counsel which directed him to convey her from the dense atmosphere of
the town to the salubrious coast of Devon.
The patient uncomplaining Gabrielle, who took without a murmur the vain
medicines which the terrified solicitude of Angelo pressed upon her, who
listened with a placid and resigned smile to all that was proposed, who
yielded with the softness of an angel to every scheme suggested for her
amusement, or the renovation of her health, acceded without a word of
opposition, and without a thought of hope, to the present entreaty of
Angelo, that she would at least consent to try the effect of a purer
air.
As if he had obtained a certainty of prolonging her life, of restoring
her from wasting sickness to bloomy health, he seized her acquiescence
on the instant, as fearful she should retract, and by the eager
impatience which he evinced in preparing for the journey, if he
distressed and incommoded the enfeebled Gabrielle, he at the same time
conveyed to her mind the reflection that she was now more than ever dear
to him; though why she was so, she wished not to dissipate the pleasing
delusion by inquiring.
In the highest human mind, self-love will a little operate; true, the
conviction could not restore her drooping health, but it spared her the
pang of witnessing in the last stages of her existence a rooted
heart-breaking indifference to her fate.
With Angelo, to decide and to act was the same thing; he immediately
left London, and by easy stages arrived in Devonshire, there hiring a
beautiful cottage which commanded an uninterrupted view of the coast.
In the exhilaration inspired by novelty and change of scene, Angelo,
transferring his vivacity to the idea of Gabrielle, endeavoured to
believe that it arose from beholding in her languid countenance
confirmation of his hopes that her residence on this spot would be
crowned with success; expressing himself to her with his wonted
animation, he exclaimed, gently seizing her in his arms, “Come, my love,
come, recover your bloom! you must--and the brilliancy of those eyes;
smile upon me, and let me see that already you feel yourself growing
better!”
As if in obedience to his wish the pale countenance of Gabrielle became
suffused with a faint hectic blush, and unwilling to damp the animation
of Angelo, she said, “I do, Angelo--- I do feel growing better;” she
smiled too, but her smile was hopeless, and the momentary fire which
sparkled in her eyes, was in the blest anticipation that she would be
better, not in this world but in a future state.
Several weeks she lingered, at the earnest wish of Angelo, in this
lovely abode. It was the close of spring, and if hope of health could be
conveyed to the sick soul bending to the tomb, this was the season to
inspire it; or if life could be breathed into the cold form of death,
this too was the season in which the miracle would have seemed less; but
amidst all this, amidst its mild verdure and budding beauty, the heart
of Gabrielle was incapable of being elated, it was still calm, still
patient and resigned, for she felt that no _second_ spring could it ever
be her lot to behold!
One evening when for the time of year it was uncommonly, but not
oppressively warm, Angelo prevailed on her to sit without the door of
their cottage, and inhale the refreshing breezes from the sea; she as
usual acquiesced, he led her forth, and debility compelled her
immediately to sit upon the rustic bench which had been placed for her
accommodation. She leaned back, and Angelo, with his arm round her
waist, tenderly supported her of whom now he felt almost the full value.
Nothing could be more beautiful than the prospect before them; it was
nature, not in her most fantastic or magnificent attire, but in her
simple, lovely and most interesting garb! she was not as a fierce and
sovereign mistress decked in her robes of state, and awing by her
frowns, but as a gentle maid, wooing and irresistibly winning
admiration by her dimpled smiles. Gradually sloping hills, dales, and
blooming valleys, charmed without confusing the senses, pleased without
fatiguing the eye; before them the green expanded bosom of the sea
seemed swelling in soft acclivity, and as if respectful to the sun beams
glittering upon it, (making it a sheet of liquid radiance,) only gently
smiled, and undulated, sending to the shore at intervals its low rushing
waves, that in hollow murmurs seemed to speak their gratitude.
Gabrielle sat for a while silent, her dim shining eyes fixed on the
prospect before her; mournful, yet not unpleasing ideas crouded on her
mind--she shed a few tears, but they were not tears of anguish.
“Angelo,” cried she at length, “regard the sky.”
“I behold it, my love,” answered Angelo.
“Do you see nothing remarkable in it?”
“Nothing!” Angelo replied, looking at her involuntarily with some
surprise.
“Well then, regard stedfastly,” pursued Gabrielle; “do you remember the
figure of my sainted father? look!” pointing with her finger, “it is
_there_ accurately delineated in the sky! see, there is his majestic
form! the contour of his head, his perfect self! Ah, Angelo, he is in
heaven, he is _behind_ that cloud, and his blest image shines dimly
through it, as through a thin veil! ah! now it fades! it fleets away!
see, Angelo, it is disappearing altogether! Would that my soul could
aspire on that parting sun beam, and reach him ere he goes--He came to
call me hence! to warn me, I know it--I feel it in the new sensation
that rushes through my frame! I am going to be regenerated!” She paused
for a moment, then added in a voice, low yet firm, “Angelo! never more
on this earth shall I behold the glory of the setting sun!”
“My beloved,” cried Angelo turning pale, and half fearful that her
senses were forsaking her, or that her language was ominous of
approaching death, “my beloved, talk not thus, nor let so fair an
evening inspire you with melancholy only--it should chear, it should
exhilarate your spirits, for I am confident from the improvement I
behold in your looks, that it has benefited you; never, never did you
appear more beautiful in my eyes than at this moment!”
Nor was the latter observation of Angelo wholly void of foundation, on
the livid white of her cheek, glowed but not blended with it, a crimson
red, resembling the brightest hue of the damask rose-bud! the gaudy and
deceitful livery in which fell consumption often decks its victims,
misleading with the hope of health, when nearest to the tomb! The bright
red tint which gave to her eyes a delusive brilliancy, causing them to
shine like distant twinkling stars, added to the semblance of beauty,
which Angelo had remarked; but Gabrielle, whose inward feelings taught
her the vanity of looks, mournfully shook her head, and said, “Deceive
not yourself, Angelo, nor cherish vain hopes; endeavour,” she continued
in a deep solemn voice, “endeavour while I have yet strength to touch
upon a subject nearest to my heart, to listen to me with
fortitude:--Promise me, when I am gone that you will spare no pains to
learn the fate of our children!--promise me, that for their sakes, you
will form no other tie, and that being free, and at liberty, you will
employ the time after _my death_, in seeking to discover if still they
live, and _how_! Oh! Angelo, this is a momentous consideration; I cannot
but think that we, to whose unhappy errors they owe that ever they were
ushered into life, _must_ be responsible for their fates at the bar of
heaven! I wish not to grieve, to torture you in my last moments,” for
the countenance of Angelo bore evident symptoms of the acuteness of his
feelings, “but if I speak not now, as I feel it my duty to do, never
more shall I possess the power!
“The only atonement which now we can make for our crime, is to obviate
as much as possible its fatal consequences. Think, Angelo!--Great God!
we have two children, and at this moment as if heaven were determined to
punish us, and show its wrath at the subversion of a _moral duty_--at
this moment we are deprived of both! nay, in utter ignorance of their
destination!--dreadful reflection!--Yet if Heaven, more merciful than
just, should wave in _our_ favour the great cause of _society_ (for in
the grand scale of its wisdom, the few must not be spared in their
errors to the injury of the many) and not punish as we merit, through
us, those innocent victims--if you are allowed life, as I am not, yet to
retrieve the unhappy past--then, I beseech you, give, give your whole
soul with ardour, with enthusiasm to the task! Ransack the universe for
your children, and snatch them from impending fate! Oh! thrice blest
will you be, should you be permitted success! thrice blest will you be,
and happy will you die, if laying your hand upon your heart, and fixing
your eyes on heaven, you can say, ‘_God_, I thank thee, my _children_
suffer not through _me_!--neither at thy tribunal can they accuse me!’”
The voice of Gabrielle, sweetly solemn, sunk in the heart of Angelo, but
it deprived him of hope, and he gazed upon her with tearful eyes. It was
getting dim twilight; to his inspired fancy, she appeared as an embodied
spirit! he dared not even take her hand, such was the sacred awe of his
feelings, and though her words rived him with anguish, he waited in
hallowed silence for what further her aspiring soul should dictate to
her lips!
She resumed: “You are silent, Angelo; I perceive, and I bless heaven for
it, that you are impressed by my words; it is all I wish; I would not
depress your soul, I desire rather to imbue it with energy; nor, if
departed spirits are allowed to look down on this earth, could mine, oh,
Angelo! be half so approving of your grief, as in beholding you in
active prosecution of my _last_ desire!”
“Oh, Gabrielle!” cried Angelo sinking on his knees before her, “beloved
of my soul, talk not thus, I implore you, of your _last_ desire! of
quitting me at this moment, when you are more dear to me, more valued
than at any former period of my past life! Oh! no, I will not promise
aught--I cannot--I shall be bereft of energy if deprived of you! Live,
live! oh, Gabrielle! and to the remotest corner of the earth may you
command me! Inspired by the dear hope of rendering _you_ happy, I should
acquire strength, ardour for any thing! obstacles would but increase my
exertion, and if our children still lived upon the earth, to your eager
arms would I assuredly bring them!”
As he concluded, Gabrielle sank down upon her knees beside him, and
joining his hands together, held them in hers.
“Now swear!” she cried, “now promise, Angelo, that you will faithfully
attend to what I have required of you!--_promise_, or in peace I cannot
die!--till then my soul, reluctant to leave its tenement of clay, will
struggle in agony for mortal life! and e’en when parting hence, will
still be steeped in anguish, unsatisfied, and clogged with remorse at
the bar of heaven!”
“Oh! great God!” cried Angelo, bursting into tears, “you rive my
heartstrings. Look not thus, my beloved!--Yes, I _swear_, I swear.”
“God! I thank thee!” cried Gabrielle, extending her fair arms to heaven,
and looking upwards with a smile of enthusiastic gratitude; then kissing
the forehead of her husband, she added, “Raise me, dear friend, and lead
me into the house.”
Angelo obeyed, but rather carried than led her light emaciated form into
the house; she retired early to bed, and slept with composure during the
night.
On the following morning Angelo entered her chamber; she was sitting up
in her bed, supported by pillows; the sun, through clustering vine and
jessamine, shone brightly into her apartment, and with singular pleasure
was she regarding alternately its chequered beams upon the floor, and
the fair prospect without, while a variety of birds gaily singing and
joining in concert their small melodious throats, seemed striving at
once to inspire her with joy and hope, and to serenade the rising morn!
Poor Gabrielle was gazing with that melancholy anxious look that evinced
her consciousness it was for the _last time_ she did so; and this
feeling, whether inspired by the anticipation of death, or absence, ever
gives an indescribable charm to the most trivial surrounding objects.
Angelo approached her bedside, and tenderly enquired how she felt.
“Well!” replied she, “calm, easy, just as I _wish to feel_!” A pang
struck the heart of Angelo at the peculiar expression of her
countenance, as she uttered this; but endeavouring to conceal his
feelings, he said in a gay tone, “Since you have awakened so early,
Gabrielle, you may as well enjoy the fresh morning breeze.”
“I would with pleasure,” she answered, “but I feel too feeble; and
perhaps if I could, it might be wrong--for it might give me a longing to
inhale it again!”
“A longing that you might easily gratify, my love,” interrupted Angelo.
“No, Angelo! I have seen the sun _rise_--I shall _never_ see it rise
again, nor shall I behold it _set_!” She reclined her head upon the
pillow, and remained silent, while Angelo turned to the window to hide
his gushing tears:--presently, from her gentle and regular breathings,
he believed that she had fallen into a slumber; he gently approached the
bed, and perceiving that her eyes were closed, sat down beside her.
She slept for about an hour, but not composedly; her countenance
frequently changed, her muscles now and then worked with a tremulous
motion, and a cold dew broke out upon her forehead.
Suddenly she started and awoke, as in trepidation and horror! she gazed
with a wild bewildered air around, seeming anxious to collect her
scattered thoughts, and recover from her strange confusion! Angelo,
infinitely alarmed, took her hand; at this she started anew, made an
effort to speak, and gazed on him with a look of patient anguish on
finding she could not! her fingers convulsively grasped his, and now
relaxed their hold--now a thin film gathered over her eyes, and now with
a wild vacancy involuntarily they opened wide! now the colour fled from
her lips, rushed back for a moment, then forsook them altogether! Her
breathing became short and irregular, and the terrified Angelo laying
his hand upon her heart, found its pulsations to tally with it. He
instantly dispatched some attendants for the physician, who daily and
vainly had visited her, and the moments passed in waiting for his
arrival were past in anxious trepidation by Angelo.
Gabrielle remained in the same state; she could not speak, but her fixed
and heavy eyes were turned on him with an expression, such as convinced
him that she knew him well, and had even something that she wished to
say to him.
The physician at length arrived; no sooner did he behold her than,
turning to Angelo, he whispered, “I cannot give you _hope_! her last
moments are approaching.” He drew near the bed-side of Gabrielle, and
raising her head he poured into her mouth a few drops of a restorative
quality. Gabrielle faintly struggled, an effort of nature aided the
effect of the cordial--she rivetted for a few moments her closing eyes
upon Angelo, and made a movement with her head, as if anxious to lay it
on his bosom.
He took her in his arms, her head fell heavy on his breast.--“Angelo!”
she faintly murmured--“a just God visits the death of my father upon
me---- I---- I too am dying---- of a _broken heart_!”
Angelo had not words, he looked on her in anguish too big for speech;
uttering a short convulsive sigh, she grasped his hand, and in
quivering, irregular accents hastily resumed,--“Remember--our
children--remember--your promise!” What more she sought to articulate in
hollow murmurs died away, the damps of death gathered on her brow! cold
and stiff became the hand which Angelo, fevered with agony, still held
in his! the last breath flitted from her livid lips, and her pure soul,
now at liberty to seek a sphere more congenial to it, ascended with it
from earth to heaven!
For many minutes after she had ceased to breathe, Angelo durst not
admit to his mind the terrible truth that she was gone for ever! He
continued gazing on her cold body with a mingled sensation of agony,
despair, and stupefaction!--at length he turned away his eyes, as if to
convince himself that they had deluded him only with a frightful vision,
and that when again he looked upon her, he should behold her breathe!
but as he turned, he encountered the solemn looks of the physician, who,
thinking that he read in the countenance of Angelo something like an
expression of doubt, uttered the slow and dreadful sentence,--“All is
indeed over!”
“No, no! you dare not say it!” wildly raved Angelo, clasping his hands
together,--“no, no! I am not so cursed!--I have not killed the most
angelic being!--Speak! Speak, oh, Gabrielle! say that you live!--that
you _will_ live! God of mercy!” he continued, madly glancing around,
“she will not answer!--oh! she is, she is indeed dead!!--but I will not
survive her--oh! no, by heaven! not an instant!” and rushing toward the
door, with intent to seek some weapon of destruction, he was opposed by
those around, when in the wildest fury he beat his breast, tore off his
hair, and as if determined on death, dashed himself upon the floor,
shrieking forth in bitter cries the name of Gabrielle! Then suddenly
breaking from those who held him, he sprang to the bed, franticly he
embraced the inanimate form, sacredly beautiful in death! he called upon
her in a frenzy of agony, till losing all command over his voice, it
wandered into a latitude of horror scarcely human! His senses failed
him, and the physician conceiving that, exhausted by his violence, he
would be longer unable to resist, desired that he should be immediately
conveyed to bed, and for that purpose was he raised from the body of
Gabrielle.
At this movement his paroxysms returned, he struggled like a maniac, now
crying aloud that he would die beside her, now piteously entreating that
he might be permitted! but nature could endure no more, he became again
overpowered, and sinking into insensibility, was borne from the spot.
END OF VOL. III.
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