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Title: The libertine; vol. 4 [of 4]
Author: Charlotte Dacre
Release date: August 22, 2026 [eBook #79428]
Language: English
Original publication: London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1807
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79428
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. 4 [OF 4] ***
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. IV.
Hail, wedded love, mysterious law; true source
Of human offspring, sole propriety
In Paradise of all things common else:
............... by thee
Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure,
Relations dear, and all the charities
Of father, son, and brother first were known.
MILTON.
How oddly will it sound, that I
Must ask my child forgiveness.
SHAKESPEARE.
_LONDON_:
PRINTED FOR T. CADELL AND W. DAVIES, STRAND.
1807.
THE
LIBERTINE.
CHAPTER XXV.
The nature of Angelo was such that his first sensations were ever the
most violent. The paroxysms of despair ceasing, he shed torrents of
tears over the breathless form of Gabrielle, he was no longer frantic, a
deep woe oppressed and rendered him incapable of worldly cares, he shut
himself up in her chamber, and would suffer no one to draw him thence.
For hours would he gaze on that pale countenance, calm, beautiful and
expressive, even in death. Sometimes involuntarily would he persuade
himself she breathed, and touch her cold hand, which breaking instantly
the delusion, he would start back with a shudder, and burst into tears.
Now sitting beside her, exhausted, worn out with incessant grief, he
would recline back and pursue a train of melancholy reflection, till he
lost himself; then suddenly springing up in alarm, imagine she called
him, as often during her illness she had been wont, and, looking within
the curtains, behold only the harrowing image of immoveable death. “Ah,
my God!” would he then exclaim, in a voice of anguish, “and can it
indeed be that my beloved is no more? the best, the loveliest, the most
angelic of women. Oh! wretch and fool that I must have been to have so
little understood her worth, to have neglected, outraged and forsaken
her as I did.”--Then, stung by remorse, the force of imagination would
cause him to utter, “Ah, her countenance assumes a stern look! she
accuses me. Is it not so? do I dream? Oh! no, no, she accuses me not;
sweet seraphic, uncomplaining as when living is that beauteous face;
sure she even smiles upon me!” Now gazing on her features from various
points of view, reason would resume her empire. He saw neither reproach,
nor smile, but the freezing fixedness of death alone, participating no
longer in mortal agitations. “Yet, oh! yet,” would he cry, “did I not
break her heart? did not her last breath tell me so?--Horror!--no, she
said not me; her heart, she said, was broken; but did not say by me--no,
no; yet, who then? Madness! madness, endless remorse must be mine! yes,
it was I who destroyed her, withered like the lightning’s blast her fair
blooming prospects, I blighted her innocent youth, I made a wretch of
her I should have worshipped,--who for me sacrificed all--yet she never
reproached me;--no--and in return, I persevered--I broke her heart!”
Then falling on his knees by her silent corpse, he would fling his arms
around it, hiding his face upon the covering which overspread her.
At length it became necessary to rouse the wretched Angelo from the
profound indulgence of a grief unmixed with other thoughts, by harrowing
intimations respecting the funeral of her he mourned. At first, on this
dreadful subject he could not listen, and such was the effect it
produced on him, it was thought imprudent at that juncture to pursue it;
but it was requisite that it should be again revived, and, in anguish of
heart inexpressible, was he compelled to give such directions as he
could, that the body of Gabrielle should be conveyed to London, there
to be interred in the family vault, and laid by the side of his mother.
Sad and mournful is the office to the survivor, with his heart still
bleeding at the fond and vivid retrospection of hours past in the
society of one beloved, in the animation of life and health--sad and
mournful for him is the office to superintend and direct the last cold
functions for those who are never to return, to perform with shuddering
soul those melancholy obsequies to their manes which usage requires, and
to know that it is indeed the _last_ tribute he can pay to the memory of
one, for whom his heart vainly pants to do more--oh, how much more!--but
who, cold, indifferent, sad, is unconscious even of that.
From that spot where, without a hope for herself, but in patient
acquiescence to the desires of others, the gentle Gabrielle had gone for
the renewal of health, was she removed a corpse, conveyed again to that
which she had quitted, and interred with funeral pomp in the same vault
where long had peacefully slept the parents of Angelo, and now received
a daughter to their bosoms, who honoured them even in death. Her funeral
was attended by all those friends of Angelo, but few in number indeed,
who had had an opportunity of knowing her--by these was she consequently
lamented, as she had been admired; for it was not in nature to know
Gabrielle, and be insensible to her singular perfections. Thus, though
it could not be said that a weeping multitude followed her to the grave,
the few who did, shed over it the tear of heartfelt sorrow, the tear
which most her hovering spirit prized.
Angelo, forlorn, despairing, heartsick, considering himself a bankrupt
in every happiness that life could now afford, refused, when the cold
remains of her he had at length truly loved and appreciated far as his
nature was capable, were laid in the earth, refused for many days to be
seen of any one; and when at length the intrusive officiousness of
friendship (so termed, but which is in reality only the impatience of
the vain and weak at sorrows, which, incapable of alleviating, they
consider it a tax to behold) compelled him from his cherished solitude,
he appeared for a short time again among them, but with a melancholy and
reluctance that soon rendered his society unsought by the many, and
unprized even by the few; for the world can grieve only for personal
misfortune, and fly from miseries not their own.
Solitude for a time was the only balm which the heart of Angelo did not
reject; there he could bring before him the fair image of Gabrielle,
when first in the bloom of youth and innocence he had beheld her; next,
as in Italy, when in the habit of a youth, she had hovered near him
unknown, his guardian angel.--Now forsaken, dying, he beheld her a
desolate wanderer, perishing in the streets of another land; then
raising for a while her languid head, but drooping it soon, never more
to revive; now her wasted form glided before him, with accusing air, and
now stretched on the bed of death no more to arise, he beheld the meek
devoted victim of his perfidy and crime. Thus the remorseful Angelo
passed his hours, till, as his grief became less powerful, his mind of
itself looked out for consolation; he yet sought it not in society, he
sought it not in a renewal of his former habits, he sought it not in
gaiety or amusement; and when again he opened his lattice on the world,
the remembrance of past scenes rushed so forcibly on his mind, that he
fled it in a paroxysm of renewed grief.
The house where Gabrielle had resided, it distracted him to enter; the
country where she died, had inspired him with unceasing horror; the
streets through which her sad remains had passed, wore the air of
depopulation; he felt an oppressive gloom over his soul, if by chance he
approached them; without her who was departed, all England appeared in
his eyes but a frightful wilderness, or the sad mausoleum of her whom it
entombed. Unable to rest, he determined on quitting it altogether, and,
the last injunctions of Gabrielle being ever present to his mind, to
bend his course towards Italy, in the faint hope that chance perhaps
might furnish him with some tidings of the fate of one, if not both his
children; or, at all events, in his present absolute uncertainty, it was
a spot as justly calculated as any other to authorise such a hope, and
might claim the preference of being first explored.
In pursuance of this idea, and deriving a melancholy pleasure from the
reflection that he was now on the point of obeying the dearest wishes of
his departed wife, and of performing to her sacred memory the promise he
had made, he hastily arranged every requisite previous to his departure,
and taking leave of Fitzarden, and a few only whom he esteemed his
friends, he embarked for Calais, having so far varied the commencement
of his route as to resolve on passing through Paris, previous to
visiting Italy; conceiving that by so doing, instead of crossing a
barren space of the Mediterranean, he multiplied his chances of
information upon a subject now the nearest to his heart.
He soon arrived at this hot-bed of frivolity, vice, and unmeaning
profligacy, where, as he had been before, and made a host of
acquaintances, he was presently surrounded, and forcibly dragged into a
vortex of dissipation. At first, as heretofore, every thing in the shape
of mirth or gaiety was hateful to him, but by degrees his mind yielded
to the attraction, and he further reconciled himself to something like
participation in the universal rage for idle amusement, in a country
where folly and fashion give the law, in the reflection that by so doing
could he alone hope for the remotest intelligence respecting those he
sought. Thus he roamed from theatre to theatre, from one party to
another, from town to country, in the environs among the gardens; yet of
those who were ever uppermost in his thoughts he discerned not the
smallest trace; and began to resolve on speedily quitting a place which
since it had ceased to inspire him with hope, inspired him only with
disgust.
It happened that a gay young nobleman, named St. Evremond, one with whom
he had formerly been in the habits of associating, called on him one
morning (while solitary in his chamber he was ruminating whether from
Paris he should go as he first intended to Italy, or otherwise to
Switzerland, in the vain hope that Madame Bertrand might be enabled to
give him some intelligence respecting his lost daughter), and perceiving
his extreme dejection, proposed to him an engagement for the evening to
accompany him to a fair Englishwoman, whom he had lately formed
acquaintance with, and whom Angelo, as he considered him more than half
an Englishman, might probably be pleased to converse with.
Having lost the best and loveliest of her sex, Angelo had not at this
juncture a thought to throw away on woman; but the name Englishwoman
caused in him an involuntary emotion, for it was in England that
Gabrielle had become his bride, and in England where now her cold
remains were laid; he could not avoid asking of the Marquis de St.
Evremond, what he knew concerning the female, and how long she had been
in Paris.
“She has been among us some time,” St. Evremond replied, “but I have not
known her long. I was introduced to her by de Vainville, my friend and
yours; all I know of her, is, that she supports a splendid appearance,
and is visited by most of our savoir vivre, both old and young, and by
many of our ladies, whose rank and situations are such as to give them a
license for doing what they please, and who can venture to set formal
rules at defiance. All are pleased with the society she contrives to
draw to her house, and with the choice entertainment, mirth, and gaiety,
that are always to be met with there; yet I believe I may confidently
assert, that no one knows, any more than myself, from _whence_ she
derives her sources, or even cares more than I do; pleasure being the
object of life, what matter how it is obtained?”
“True,” thought Angelo to himself, “Frenchmen do not care,” forgetting
at the moment that the observation was not applicable to Frenchmen
only, and not long since had been most decidedly so to himself. “Well,”
cried he aloud, “I will attend you then, for I have a curiosity to see
this fair one.”--“Ah! fort bien, au révoir,” cried the gay Marquis
running out of the room, “I have a thousand important things to perform,
and above all must hasten to the rehearsal at the opera, for I am every
thing there; so adieu.”
The evening found Angelo prepared for his destined visit; the Marquis
was true to his appointment, and they departed together. They soon
arrived at the elegant residence of this vaunted fair one, and were
ushered into an apartment richly furnished, gaily illuminated, highly
perfumed, and filled with a multitude of those gaudy butterflies, who
wander about in search of pleasure, indifferent, as St. Evremond had
aptly said, where or how it might be obtained.
“There,” cried he to Angelo as he entered, “there is the goddess of this
terrestrial heaven: do you not observe how she is surrounded, absolutely
encompassed by a crowd, yet towers above them all; do but regard,
Count--a majestic height!” Angelo looked forward, and beheld the tall
figure of a woman, fancifully but not tastefully attired, and who,
whatever might be the attractions of her form, could rank neither
delicacy, nor elegance among them. Her face was not towards them, and
St. Evremond promised his companion that he would presently make his way
and introduce him. But now the female turned, and was moving towards
them; St. Evremond called the attention of Angelo; he had already caught
a glimpse of a countenance not unfamiliar to him, and was turning
faint. She drew nearer; Angelo looked with all his powers of vision.
Bedaubed with rouge, covered with frippery, bloated and disfigured, but
not completely disguised, he beheld before him--the gorgon head of
Milborough! and, staggering with horror, would have fallen to the
ground, but that the Marquis caught his arm, and prevented him.
The abandoned Milborough had beheld him too, and as immediately
recognized him; for the moment she was petrified with alarm, but
promptly recovering herself, with her native effrontery and cunning, she
drew near, seeming wholly unconcerned.
“Count D’Albini,” exclaimed the Marquis, “you are not ill I hope--Allow
me to introduce you to our lovely hostess.”
“Your friend seems overcome, Marquis,” cried Milborough with an assumed
accent, half French half English, and determined to affect total
ignorance of Angelo, “Had you not better retire with him a few moments
into the next chamber?--there you will find refreshments and--”
At this daring insolence, rage took place of every other sensation in
the bosom of Angelo. “Wretch!” he exclaimed, seizing her by the arm,
indifferent to all around--“dare you affect not to know me?”
“Good Heaven, Marquis,” exclaimed Milborough, disengaging herself from
the wild grasp of Angelo, “for what do you bring a madman to my house?”
The Marquis slightly bowed, glanced towards Angelo, and shrugged his
shoulders with an embarrassed air.
“Woman!” resumed the half frantic Angelo, “beware how you tempt me too
far. I command you, instantly inform me, what have you done with my
son?”
The bronzed cheek of Milborough knew no blush, her unabashed eye
wandered round as seeming to ask indignant participation in the
countenances of those present, for the insult offered her; she read only
curiosity, indifference or a desire to remain neuter; and fearful then,
lest Angelo, as well she knew he could, should unmask her before those
with whom she desired to remain unsuspected, she assumed an air of
anger, blended however with some confusion, and turning towards him
demanded--“Pray, Count, for so I think the Marquis styled you, what do
you require of me?”
“My son, wretch!” returned Angelo, “and unless you would be instantly
exposed for what you are, give me immediate information of him.”
“Well,” cried Milborough, glancing round with a smile of affected
indifference, but which however was not reflected back by any of her
guests, “well, Count, if you have really any thing of importance to say
to me, as you appear so desirous; I will attend you in another
apartment--though really I think such conduct somewhat strange.” Then
waving her hand to invite Angelo forward, who indignantly followed her
from the crowded apartment, she led the way to a small antichamber at a
distance from the company.
Angelo, instantly shutting the door with violence, in a voice quivering
with rage repeated the question of “Where is my son?”
“How should I know?” returned Milborough; “do you think I hold him still
in leading strings?”
“Who but you, wretch, can know aught respecting him? Was it not you who
stole him from beneath my roof, when you basely robbed me beside of all
I possessed?”
“Bitter language, my Lord; I would advise you to be more sparing of
it.--Your son left your house with me indeed, but by his own consent,
nay by his wish.--As for the robbery you speak of, if such it pleases
you to call it, he had his share in that too;--but supposing he had not,
what then?--I thought you knew the world better than to suppose a woman
of discretion could think of remaining with you after you were ruined;
or when she quitted you, she would like a fool leave--.”
“Cease your diabolical jargon, shock not my ears with the promulgation
of your infamous principles; be their baseness your curse; the crimes
they lead you to, your punishment; I ask you of my _son_; tell me his
present destination--let all else rest.”
“That is more than I can undertake to do,” returned Milborough; “the
destination of your son is unknown to me, and has been for some time.”
“Abominable woman! this prevarication shall not avail you; if you do not
instantly say where you have secreted the youth, I will publicly expose
you, and bring you to punishment.”
Milborough burst into a loud laugh. “Why, what would you gain by that?”
exclaimed she; “no one here would believe you, and if they did, still
what would you gain? Besides, how can you directly prove any thing
against me? But make the attempt if you will, for the jest’s sake,--do,
and perhaps you will easily get over the small trifle of my proving that
your son was not merely an accomplice with me, but my chief agent in all
I did.”
“Monster! dare you speak of a boy! a child trepanned by your base arts,
as an accomplice? That shall avail you nought, nor shall any thing, but
a prompt and sincere acknowledgment respecting him.”
“Though I despise your threats, Count, from being aware of their
absurdity, in compassion to your seeming anxiety, I will condescend thus
far to inform you. The boy left England with me, I grant; he hated his
mother, you know.” Angelo’s heart swelled with rage and anguish, but his
desire to hear this female demon to an end kept him silent. “He came
with me to this place, and remained with me, even for some time; but
being a spirited youth, and much like his father in point of character,
that is, fond of novelty, he soon deserted from my banners to those of a
French Marchioness, whom, I presume, he preferred to me, because she
paid him more compliments, and, as he conceived, would be more indulgent
to him than myself, whom he considered, and ever had indeed, more as
mother than his natural parent.”
She paused, but finding Angelo remained silent, she resumed: “I would
spare you a recital of the rest, as you appear agitated; but a
waiting-maid belonging to this said Marchioness, who had paid your son
great attention, suddenly disappeared with all the jewels and most
valuable property of her mistress, and with her disappeared your son
likewise.--Whither they directed their course no one could imagine, but
they are certainly together, and the discovery of the one must throw a
light upon the other. Time, no doubt,” she added, with a malicious
smile, “will reveal your son to you, but I would advise you not to be
scrupulous as to the situation in which you may find him.”
The wretched father was penetrated with anguish; there was an air of
truth in the horrible relation of Milborough: yet if his son were indeed
so early lost, if already his young mind had yielded to vice, who had
been his betrayer? Before him stood the abominable wretch, the corrupter
of youth, the destroyer of innocence! glorying in her base and
iniquitous triumph.
“Monster and devil!” he passionately exclaimed,--“if what you say be
even true--to you, to you may he attribute all.”
“Or rather to yourself, my lord,” interrupted Milborough, “and no doubt
he will _repay_ you: but perhaps you wish for further information upon
the subject, or suspect the truth even of what I have told you; if so,
the injured Marchioness is in the other room, and will readily confirm
all.”
This was a proposition from which Angelo shrunk; when Milborough
perceiving that he hesitated, and desirous to plant the dagger deep as
she could in the father’s heart, observed that he might make inquiries
of the Marchioness as a person interested in the fate of the youth only,
without acknowledging any relationship between them. To this the
wretched Angelo, scarcely knowing what he did, gloomily assented;
Milborough led him with an assumed air of interest and consideration
towards the Marchioness, but at the same time with a triumph which she
kept secret.
“I take the liberty, Madame la Marquise,” she said addressing her, “to
request of you a favour--you will have no objection, I hope, to assure
this gentleman of the event that took place lately in your family
respecting the youth you so much admired, and received into your house;
who repaid you by eloping with your maid, having first in conjunction
with her, plundered you of every valuable you possessed: this gentleman
has some knowledge of the youth Felix, and cannot believe him capable of
an act so base and ungrateful.”
“Ah, Monsieur,” exclaimed the Marchioness, laying her hand upon his arm;
“do you know any thing of him? I wish indeed, what Madame has told you
were not true, as I in that case should be now in possession of my
jewels, and a sum of money which I was almost ruined in losing.” She
then proceeded, with the volubility peculiar to her nation, to detail
the particulars of her loss; enlarged upon the affection she had
conceived for the youth, “he was so beautiful, so animated;” then on his
ingratitude towards her; and concluded by again inquiring of Angelo if
he could give her any intelligence either of him or his companion.
What a situation for the proud indignant Angelo! what a situation for a
heartsick father, to listen to the dreadful confirmation of his son
having committed a robbery! to hear of his monstrous early depravity,
of his total want of even the commonest social principle, and to be
asked (was it in nature to support it?) if he could point him out, if he
could be the means to bring his own son to justice? His senses almost
failed him, a cold shudder ran through all his limbs. Nearly suffocated
with agonising emotion, he turned his burning eyes on the infamous
Milborough, who had been all this time enjoying with fiend-like malice
the tortures in which she saw him writhe. “Monster and Devil!” exclaimed
he, “this is thy work, this----”
Milborough with a significant smile placed her hand upon his mouth, and
taking him by the arm, drew him a few paces back, and whispered in his
ear, “’Tis I who _now_ say, beware how you tempt me too far. If you
utter another sentence calculated to injure me, I will instantly
declare you aloud for the _father_ of the young robber!”
Angelo started back, and gazed on Milborough as in wonder that such
frightful depravity could exist in human nature. He beheld the
countenance of the fiend, fierce, bold, exulting; he essayed to speak,
but could not;--so tremblingly alive was he to disgrace or exposition.
Milborough had touched a string which vibrated to madness; his strength
seemed equally with his power of speech to be failing him; scarcely
knowing what he did, he made a desperate effort to recal his waning
faculties, and breaking through the surrounding throng he rushed like a
maniac from the house.
Without the power of volition, without intention, or idea, mechanically
he traced the way to the hotel where he lodged--his mind was anarchy,
was despair. Incapable of remaining another night in a place where he
had been blasted by such an assemblage of horrors, where, above all, he
must breathe an atmosphere polluted by the breath of Milborough! he
summoned his servant, and bidding him follow as soon as possible, late
as it was, took his departure from Paris.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Pursuing his original intention, he directed his course to Italy; nor
till he breathed the pure air of his father’s native country, did he
begin to revive from the dreadful effects of the blow he had received,
or feel lighter of the weight of woe that had oppressed him. Arrived at
Naples, again he was at home, escaped as it were from the fangs of
demons who tormented him, to be received with joy, among friends who
loved him. His mourning habit, his melancholy air, his evident
wretchedness, drew towards him the warm hearts who should most relieve
him from himself, and from the contemplation of misfortunes now
irremediable.
By degrees the unhappiness of Angelo diminished, though a corroding
anxiety to discover his children still remained, and actuated him to use
every effort; all however proved unhappily fruitless, every inquiry
vain, to a dispiriting degree; and in despair he began to believe that
the curse of Heaven was visited upon him, and that his offspring,
unnoticed, and unclaimed were doomed in sad dishonour to wander through
the earth. At length, after remaining a considerable time at Naples, the
project of seeking Madame Bertrand in Switzerland again occurred to him;
but when he prepared to put his plan in execution his courage failed,
and the thought that he was about to of his Italian friends, and each
sought revisit the scenes where first in the bloom of youth and
innocence, in placid content and peace he had beheld the lovely ill
fated Gabrielle; where too he had first blighted the hopes of that
youth, destroyed that innocence, marred for ever its blissful content,
and become a villain, though not a deliberate one perhaps, beneath the
roof of trusting hospitality;--the deep consciousness of the wrongs he
had committed, was too strong for the heart of Angelo, and his mind was
too weak to endure the retrospection of them amid scenes and in shapes
so harrowing. He had not fortitude to inflict upon himself the renovated
pangs of conscience, nor to bow beneath those pangs as just, or hail
them as expiatory; to feel that he was a wretch was already too much; to
have it confirmed to him in a thousand different damning ways, would
have driven him to absolute distraction, or at once have annihilated
him.
His friends (some of whom were sufficiently interested in him to
endeavour to read his mind, and consequently discovered its anguished
workings,) dissuaded him from the idea altogether, and proposed instead
that he should address Madame Bertrand by letter on the subject nearest
his heart, and which would answer every purpose to be gained equally
with a visit. To this alternative Angelo, appearing convinced of its
eligibility, yielded with secret joy, happy to have an excuse for
sparing himself those terrible pangs, which, on anticipation only, had
already shaken him to the very centre. In Naples beside he was as much
at ease as the nature of circumstances and the occasional intrusion of
sad remembrances would permit; every one studied to cheer and amuse him,
and none more than those who, having known Gabrielle, appreciated in a
degree the greatness of his loss, and sympathized in his grief: in
short, there was nothing which could render his residence in this
country otherwise than pleasing.
The wretched Oriana, whose continuance in it would have been to him not
only a source of extreme uneasiness, but a perpetual reproach, no longer
existed on the face of the earth; she had paid the debt of her vices and
profligacy in a premature death. Having met with a lover who proved a
second Fiorenza, but to whom she was determined not equally to submit,
the contest, carried on with obstinacy by her, was repaid with violence
and equal obstinacy from him, till wearied by her stubborn perseverance,
and impatient at her presumption, he one day, during a furious quarrel,
plunged his stiletto in her breast: she languished for a time under the
wound, and then expired in agony, while the dastard who had inflicted
the blow hastily secured the whole of what she possessed, and fled. Such
had been the fate of Oriana, who had ended her career of infamy by a
miserable death, and whose dissolute life had merited no better
catastrophe.
A letter was dispatched to Madame Bertrand, or rather Boffuet, and
Angelo awaited her reply in anxious impatience; it arrived, but
contained nothing, alas! to renovate his hopes. In it he had only the
painful and discouraging repetition of having never yet heard the least
tidings of her beloved Agnes, since the hour of her departure; bitter
lamentations, that opened afresh his own wounds, for the death of her
adored Gabrielle, (which event he had in his letter made known to her);
horrible apprehensions, vividly pourtrayed, which conjured too before
the mind of Angelo, the most appalling images of what might be the
probable fate of her dear lost child; and then, with that pardonable
egotism so natural to human nature, did she revert to her own
unfortunate situation, the folly she had been guilty of in marrying, at
her years, a brutal, selfish and passionate wretch like Boffuet, and the
merited punishment of harsh and cruel treatment which she had in
consequence experienced.
Angelo could read nothing with indifference that fell from the pen of
her who had been the dearest friend of Gabrielle, and tender protectress
of his child; he therefore after shedding bitter tears over what more
immediately regarded those so dear to him, paid the tribute of a few to
the unhappiness of an excellent woman, in whose unmerited misfortunes he
could not but sincerely sympathise.
Some short time further having now elapsed, notwithstanding his
agreeable situation in Italy, and that no other country could have for
him equal charms, Angelo determined to quit this terrestrial paradise,
and to return to England, where if after every possible means through
the most public channels should have been resorted to, to develope some
trace, or obtain some intelligence of his children, he could still
obtain not the remotest information of either, he resolved to traverse
all Europe in search of them, and even to penetrate into other quarters
of the globe, if the shadow of a probability offered that researches so
distant might not prove ineffectual. So long as he was inactive, he
considered that he was not obeying the injunctions of the sainted
Gabrielle, and in the midst of those little festivities with which his
friends sometimes contrived to entertain him, suddenly he would start
up, and rush from the gay scene, as considering that he was not pursuing
her last desires, and secretly accuse himself of a sacrilegious
negligence. Such was the high influence and triumph, though late
obtained, of virtue and excellence, over the wandering and unsteady mind
of a libertine.
It was in vain for those who prized the society of Angelo, and desired
to retain him among them, to represent to him the wildness of his
proposed plan, or seek to impress upon his mind, that the ideas of
Gabrielle in entreating him to think of his children, and endeavour to
trace them, never extended to the length that he imagined; he persevered
in his determination, alledging that he should not religiously fulfil
her dying request, or his promise to her, if while he had life, he
desisted from the unremitting search. He fixed then a period for his
departure, and while the time rapidly approached, his friends, anxious
at least to procrastinate it, imagined an endless variety of
entertainment, calculated to have dissipated lesser cares, and have
shaken resolutions less firm.
One evening walking solitary among some of the beautiful environs of
Naples, he beheld at a slight distance before him a young female, who
though veiled from head to foot, betrayed a figure of such exquisite
symmetry that involuntarily he was attracted towards her. Angelo was no
longer young, and tumultuous passion for the fair had long ceased to
agitate his heart; yet still was he not insensible to their attractions,
and was an enthusiastic admirer of beauty, without being a lover.
Desirous if possible to behold the fair countenance which he conceived
must appertain to a form so divine, he quickened his pace, and had
nearly reached the object of an idle curiosity, when by accident she
stumbled and fell. Angelo, no longer entertaining an idea but that of
rendering assistance, flew to raise her from the ground, and with the
most delicate attention offered his services; the veil of the fair
incognita had fallen aside, and discovered a countenance which exceeded
if possible the expectations which her figure had raised. Without being
absolutely what is termed beautiful, there was in it an expression which
surpassed beauty’s self, and conveyed to the mind an idea of loveliness,
such as its most enthusiastic imagery could never have conceived. Angelo
gazed with an admiration that almost deprived him of the ease and self
possession acquired by long intercourse with polished society; while the
young female modestly, thanking him for the assistance he had rendered
her, turned in another direction from that in which she had been
walking, for the purpose of returning home.
This movement recovered Angelo, and with that gracefulness of manner
peculiarly his own, which no time could diminish, he offered her his
arm, entreating that she would deign to lean upon it, till she had in
some degree recovered the agitation occasioned by her accident.
“Indeed, Signor,” answered she with an enchanting naïveté, and deeply
blushing, “if it would not materially inconvenience you, I would accept
your kind offer, as in truth I feel so much hurt as to be scarcely
capable of walking.”
The heart of Angelo felt an emotion of pleasure; he presented his arm
for her acceptance with an air of respectful interest, and requested
that she would support herself wholly upon it. A female needed his
assistance--this was enough for the highly bred and polished Angelo to
keep a watchful guard over his language, and not to embarrass or
oppress, even by his admiration, one who had honoured him so far as to
believe she ran no risk by accepting his protection. The fair female
consequently found herself at ease. The appearance of Angelo, though
strictly elegant, was no longer that of a young man; this circumstance
contributed likewise to increase her confidence; he spoke little, but
that little with delicacy and reserve, seeming scarcely to exact a
return; he confined himself to general observations, or adverted to such
topics as the most lovely and innocent female might have participated in
without a blush.
At length, at the entrance of a small villa, which had nothing in its
exterior to recommend it, but a modest simple elegance, the fair
stranger stopped. “This,” said she, with an air slightly embarrassed,
“is my residence, Signor.”
Angelo bowed, and perceiving her confusion, relieved her instantly by
saying, “I will not ask permission to intrude at present, Signora; but
if I might to-morrow be suffered to inquire if you have sustained any
ill effects from your accident--”
“I--I live entirely alone, Signor, and--and”--she stopped and deeply
blushed.
Angelo knew women well; by this time he had acquired experience, and was
well versed in their various artifices. A new light broke upon his mind,
he gazed upon the fair creature before him with altered eyes; she
appeared innocent, but it must be delusion; he beheld in her no longer a
virtuous female, but the gay Cleopatra of some Italian noble, retained
according to their custom in a favourite and retired villa, as the soft
companion of their lighter hours. Immediately at this conception,
whether just or unjust, and which had its source in the prejudice of
Angelo against the sex, from his knowledge (with a single exception
only) of the worser part, his real respect vanished; the discovery which
he considered he had made, arrested on his lips the avowal of his name,
which had hovered on them, and determined him not to commit himself to
the frantic jealousy of an enraged lover, through the weakness of a
frail female. But though his respect had vanished, his politeness,
deceptive semblance! remained, and while he could scarcely avoid
lamenting that such peculiar beauty should want the intrinsic ornament
of innocence, his admiration did not subside, and he felt an
unconquerable desire once more to behold, and learn further of the
lovely stranger.
With a gay air therefore, but devoid of levity, he observed, “I trust,
Signora, that your being alone forms no obstacle to the favour I have
solicited.”
“Gratitude commands that I should see you again, indeed, Signor; but I
know not if it is warranted by a strict propriety.”
Angelo deeming this a flight of affectation merely, smiled archly as he
answered: “The _idea_ is every thing, Signora; the feeling which would
prompt you to admit me is a virtue; how then, in yielding to it, can you
be guilty of an impropriety?”
“Farewell, for the present, Signor,” cried the young female, gracefully
waving her hand, as she entered the house. Angelo returned her courtesy
with a smile. “She will not _say_ she wishes to see me again,” said he
mentally, “but it is sufficiently evident without.” Impressed with this
idea, and others no more favourable to the fair incognita, he slowly
retraced his way home.
The next morning he failed not to be punctual to his self-invited
appointment; he beheld her walking in the garden before her house, and
was not displeased to remark that she received him with an air of
pleasure; she invited him into the house with that mixture of frankness
and politeness that, while it placed him entirely at ease, repressed at
the same time improper familiarity. Thus, though surrounding
circumstances encouraged suspicion, her own manners, appearance, and
conduct, repelled every calumnious idea.
The interior of the dwelling corresponded to its exterior; it was
simple, tasteful, elegant; an air of ease and comfort reigned
throughout, and no second inhabitant was visible, save an ancient female
domestic. Still would cruel suspicion intrude into the mind of Angelo.
“Why did this lovely creature live in such profound solitude? why, if a
respectable female, did she not mix in society, or draw around her a
select circle of appropriate companions? why, this air of mystery? why,
if her sources of livelihood were such, and her means of indulgence such
as need not shrink from the broad eye of investigation, why young,
polished, elegant and entitled to a high seat in society, still prefer
(at least) an equivocal retirement, unnoticed, and unsanctioned by the
world?”
That her situation was such as he had at first suspected, he still
continued to believe, and still therefore was unwilling to acknowledge
himself for who he was; for the present he had evaded rendering his
name, by having first recognized the fair stranger in her garden, and
having addressed her while there. But desirous as he was to wrap
_himself_ in concealment, knowing how easily the jealousy of an Italian
lover is excited, he could perceive no reason for a similar reserve on
the part of the fair one, whose divulgement of her name to him must be
considered a matter of no import whatever. When therefore on the point
of departing, he took her hand with an air of respect and said, “So
delighted have I been, I have not even asked the name of the fair
creature who has yielded me the pleasure of her conversation.”
“My name, Signor, is Ida,” returned the young female, slightly blushing.
“Ida!” repeated Angelo, with an air that seemed to say, “and nothing
more?”
“Ida,” she replied again to his inquiring glance.
“Ida only,” thought Angelo; “more mystery!”
“But, Signor,” added Ida timidly, “I hope I am not incorrect in asking
whom I have had the honour of conversing with?”
Angelo was wholly unprepared for this natural question, for with the
pride incidental to man, he thought it only right that his own curiosity
should be gratified, while he did not infer the necessity of gratifying
that of others in return. But Ida, with all her unassuming naïveté,
appeared to expect an answer; and Angelo, in confusion, seeing no longer
the possibility of escape, mechanically sought for his card, and with a
constrained bow presented it to the fair inquirer. She glanced her eye
slightly over it, and exclaimed,
“Il Marchese di Orbino,” at the same time bowing gracefully towards
Angelo.
Angelo was instantly sensible of the error of Ida, and of his own
involuntary mistake, in having given her in his confusion the card of a
friend, (which he had accidentally about him,) in lieu of his own. With
a start of surprise he was about to explain, when the idea suddenly
struck him, that by permitting her to remain in her error, he was hidden
beneath an impenetrable veil, while at the same time he promised himself
that he would neither disgrace the name of his friend, nor make an
improper use of the covert which it lent him. It was not that Angelo
shrunk from the probability of a duel, for he wanted neither courage nor
bravery, nor that he dreaded secret assassination; but he wished not at
this period to have his name involved in a ridiculous affray about a
woman, or unnecessarily to be pointed out as a rival, when at present he
felt no inclination to become one. Further he reconciled his mind to the
practice of the deception, in the reflection, that Ida observed mystery
towards him, in having given him only half her name.
But thus yielding to the temptation to act with duplicity, was under any
circumstances unpardonable, and unworthy in Angelo, and brought with it
a punishment duly proportioned to the dereliction from honour and
propriety.
CHAPTER XXVII.
A day now scarcely elapsed that the fair Ida was not visited by Angelo.
Unconsciously he had abandoned all thought of hastening his departure,
and felt himself gradually and irresistibly attracted towards this newly
discovered magnet. Still, however, the fair one was only Ida to him,
still her manners were the same--frank, and graceful, and delicately
modest; all around her still wore the self same air, and still
impenetrable to the foot of other man than himself, appeared her fair
abode. Inclined to suspect, yet unable to ascertain; involuntarily
admiring, yet afraid to trust, Angelo revolved in vain in his mind some
means of deciding at once the real character of the mysterious recluse;
he could not deny but there shone in all her actions a beautiful
simplicity--yet was it real? or was it not rather merely assumed?
Having dined one day with a party of his gay associates, and enjoying in
the unrestrained spirit of conviviality, his wine and ices in the
fresco, it occurred to him, as he found his vivacity elevated to a
higher pitch than it had ever been since the death of Gabrielle, that he
had never yet visited his beauteous solitary at a late hour of the
evening. As he pondered on this idea, and continued drinking, he
determined, exhilirated as he was, that the present would furnish him
with the opportunity he had long sought of ascertaining her character
in its true light: should he, as he expected, be refused admittance, he
should immediately infer that her lover was with her, and his suspicions
would be at once confirmed; but should he, on the contrary, be admitted,
and find her as heretofore entirely alone, then, by a change of
deportment towards her, would he prove if she were really the innocent
and virtuous creature she appeared to be.
Thus is it with man--if a female wears the semblance of being virtuous,
if even calumny’s self cannot prove her otherwise, then do they require
some proof stronger even than truth itself; but if being not equally
_wary_ as _virtuous_, if unable to resist or circumvent various
temptation and ceaseless manœuvre, at length she fall, then do they
despise her for her weakness, triumphantly and cruelly adducing it in
confirmation of their assertion, that “she could never have been
virtuous.”
Flushed with wine, heated in the anticipation of expected victory,
Angelo stole silently from his companions, and bent his steps towards
the residence of Ida. Instantly he was admitted, and found her alone; he
approached her with an air gayer than usual, and was received with the
same artless and undisguised pleasure as ever by her.--“Ha!” thought
Angelo, “she is not _displeased_ with my visit at this unusual hour; she
is perhaps the _discarded_ mistress of some fickle Italian--lovely to a
degree though, who could forsake her?”
Ida, who either did not observe, or was not aware of the situation of
Angelo, and who had ever considered the disparity of their years as
sufficient to obviate the idea of impropriety in receiving his visits,
attributed this unwonted vivacity to an overflow merely of animal
spirits, and thought not of an attempt to repress them. This
forbearance, while it strengthened his suspicions against her,
emboldened him in the pursuit of his intentions; his respect began
gradually in appearance to diminish, his language became more tender and
familiar, and his looks declared to Ida that he entertained sentiments
which she had been incapable of suspecting.
In proportion as he became less respectful, she grew more reserved; and
when at length she found it necessary to be seriously indignant, Angelo
attributing it all to intolerable affectation, seized her suddenly in
his arms, and swore that she appeared if possible more beautiful in
anger than in kindness.
Mortified, indignant not less at his manner than at his action, for she
wished to regard him as a tender, rational, and respectful friend,
rather, than a lover, she broke from him, and viewing him with eyes
flashing scorn and indignation, commanded him instantly to quit the
house.
“What,” cried Angelo, essaying again to clasp her in his arms, “and
leave you thus offended?”
The delicate Ida struggled violently to escape from his grasp; while
Angelo, ravished at her beauty and unmoved by her distress, gazed
eagerly upon her. Finding every effort vain against his superior
strength, she made a last desperate effort to disengage herself, and in
so doing, a portrait which had been concealed in her bosom, escaped from
its confinement, and would have fallen to the ground, but that Angelo,
catching it from the broken chain, exclaimed,
“Ah! behold the secret of your severity to me!--let us see at least the
object of your preference.”
So saying, he brought the picture near the light; he held it to his
eyes, while Ida, overcome by shame, horror and exhaustion was unable to
offer resistance.--He gazed--gazed wildly!--he gasped for breath.
Could it be?--ah! it was no delusion--the portrait of his father
met his view!--of his mother!--those he had given himself to
Gabrielle!--Distracted, overcome with terrible emotion, scarce knowing
what he did, he sought the well known spring--he touched it--the
portraits divided--he beheld _himself_ in childhood! ah, far less
changed indeed in feature than in mind!
Now he looked eagerly on the creature before him; the heart which had
beat tumultuous with unholy passion, now thrilled with horror! she could
be no other than his _daughter_ whom he beheld, whom he would have
destroyed!
In a faint faltering voice he said, “Speak, speak? who gave you
this;--are you not called--Montmorency?”
Ida, who on beholding in the countenance of Angelo the sudden change
from the high blush of licentious transport to the pale agony of terror,
had recovered from personal apprehension, and found her feelings
attracted in a different channel. With eager glances, and in an
irregular tone, anticipating she knew not what, she replied to the
question of Angelo--“It was a _mother_ gave it to me--it was all she had
to give.”
“Her name! her name!” gasped Angelo.
“Gabrielle de Montmorency!”
Angelo flew towards her, he clasped her to his breast, while Ida, still
trembling, unknowing what to think, endeavoured to withdraw from his
strict embrace.
“Oh you need not--you need not,” cried Angelo in agony, and almost
suffocated by conflicting emotion, horror, confusion, remorse,--“I--I
am--your _Father_--your name is not Ida, but Agnes.”
Ida shrieked, and nearly fell to the ground--her father caught her in
his arms--she feared no longer, she reposed upon his bosom. With
transport, then, how much more pure and delightful, did he press to his
heart as a _daughter_ her whom he had viewed with other eyes, and sought
for the ignoble purpose of unhallowed passion.
Agnes was the first to recover from their mutual and overpowering
sensations; for the fearful lesson which Angelo had received, the awful
check which had been given to his libertine pursuit, kept him silent, in
inward contemplation and remorseful horror, justly alloying the refined
delight he would otherwise have felt in the recovery of a daughter. She
fixed her eyes upon him, and with an air of inquietude and timidity
said, “Inform me, my lord, how can you be my father, yet be called il
Marchese di Orbino!”
“No, no, my beloved child,” answered Angelo, near sinking with shame and
confusion, “I am not so called,--it was that unwarrantable, that
dangerous deception on my side that has kept us so long in ignorance of
each other, that, by permitting you to remain in an error respecting my
name, was near making me curse myself for a wretch steeped in
irremediable sin!”
“Ah! my father, your name is then Angelo D’Albini,” cried Agnes gazing
on him with eyes swimming in tears, because of the perfect resemblance
she traced between him and his youthful portrait--then taking it up, she
examined first one, then the other, exclaiming “How little your features
appear changed, my father; the expression of the countenance is almost
the same!”--Then bursting into tears, “how unhappy am I,” she added,
“never to have beheld my mother, that celestial mother, of whom Madame
Bertrand was continually speaking to me--Tell me, my father, how soon
may I hope to behold her?”--
Angelo, who had been gazing on her with tender delight, and listening to
her artless effusions, now felt his heart-strings suddenly contract, and
uttering a cry of renewed anguish, he said, “Ah! you will never behold
her; you--you have no mother!”
“No mother!” cried Agnes, in an accent of bitter grief.
“No, no, my love; she has long since mingled with her kindred
angels--I--I it was”--the self accusation died on his lips--for where is
the father who can bear to be thought guilty by his child? He covered
his face with his hands, and bursting sobs rent, without relieving his
heart. Agnes respected the renewed anguish of her father; she did not
speak, but laying her head upon his bosom, mingled her tears with his.
Angelo pressed her with a sacred fervour to his heart; through his eyes,
misty with tears, he gazed upon those lovely and noble features, which
often he had fancied bore a fugitive resemblance to those of the
departed Gabrielle, such as when first he had beheld her; now he
discerned in them an evident correspondence with those of that angelic
being, though still the animated expression of her entire countenance
more nearly resembled his own.
When the excess of their mutual feelings had somewhat subsided, Angelo
found that he had a thousand inquiries to make, that he was on the rack
to know how his beloved child could be thus situated, seemingly alone
and unprotected, and by what mystery she was enabled to appear thus
independent of the world. But the hour was late, and now the _father_ of
her he had lately beheld with feelings and sentiments so opposite to
those of the parent, was tremblingly alive to even the semblance of
impropriety in the conduct of his _daughter_, and punctilious to the
slightest trifle that might concern her fame. So, often with the
libertine, whose moral feelings are seldom outraged by seeking to
destroy the wife, sister, or daughter of _another_, yet who are ever on
the watch to guard their own, and up in arms if the shadow of an insult
be cast upon them.
Thus then, Angelo resolved to sacrifice his longing anxiety for an
explanation from Agnes, to the interest he _now_ felt in her reputation,
and tore himself away, determined to wait till the following day for its
gratification, and the solution of every uneasy doubt that involuntarily
preyed upon his mind.
He scarcely slept during the night, or if he did, momentarily started
up, in the thrilling remembrance of having found a daughter; now in the
terror that she was being torn away from him, and now in the painful
thought that all was but delusion. Her probable situation sometimes
presented itself to his mind; he shuddered at the idea of what she
might have encountered, or burned in the agonizing apprehension that she
might be infamous. Now he pondered on her seeming lovely innocence, and
now writhed in anguish, lest it should have been the prey of the
seducer. So passed the hours till morning, for which he waited with
intolerable anxiety, and as soon as his sense of decorum, influenced as
it was by strong impatience, would permit, he hastened to the abode of
his daughter, almost yielding to the superstitious dread that he should
no longer find her there. But the fair Agnes was at her door, eagerly
expecting him; yet the delight with which she received him was mingled
with embarrassment, and in her fine countenance he read the traces of
uneasy sadness.--He looked at her, and unknowing why, his heart misgave
him; he took her hand with tender seriousness, and led her into the
house.
The impatience of Angelo to learn the particulars of her situation, was
controuled by an invincible yet inexplicable sensation, that made him
shrink from inquiry;--he longed, yet dreaded to hear, and feared he knew
not what. The manner of Agnes too was far from tending to reassure him;
it was hesitating, distressed, confused; her eyes filled momentarily
with tears, and her cheeks were dyed with blushes at every word he
addressed to her, when there seemed no visible cause of emotion. At
length Angelo could support no longer this dreadful uncertainty; he
determined to lead at once to the subject so near his heart, and to know
the truth, even though death or madness must ensue. When therefore a
mutual and embarrassed pause had ensued, during which he almost fancied
he could behold the heart of Agnes beat beneath her robe, while his too
throbbed with violent and answering emotion, he took her hand, and in a
faltering voice said, “But, my dear child has not yet informed me, she
has not said wherefore--what has befallen her since her departure from
the roof of Madame Bertrand.”--He paused.--
“My father! my father!” replied Agnes in broken accents, “I was then
very young--but I--it is my duty to inform you of every thing.”
“I am most anxious to hear indeed, my love,” replied Angelo, imagining
already his worst fears verified, yet desirous to reassure her by his
manner, and obtain her confidence. “Begin your relation from the moment
of your departure from the roof of Madame Bertrand, and let me
understand likewise why you called yourself Ida instead of Agnes.”
The face of Ida was deep crimson,--she trembled and replied, “I--I will
endeavour to relate all, my father,--I will commence from the period you
mention,--I will open my heart to you if I can acquire courage,--promise
me, promise me only,” she added, while the tears fell fast on her bosom,
“that you will be merciful in judging your child.”
At this appalling preface the soul of Angelo shook within him, but he
remembered that he had _forsaken_ his child, that therefore her faults
were _his_, and that if he could not be merciful in his judgment of her,
what must he _himself_ merit at the bar of eternal justice,
but--perdition! Fearful to trust his feelings to many words, he only
pressed her hand, and murmured, “Proceed.”
After a few moments more of harrowing pause, Agnes in faltering accents
spoke thus:
“I believe I was not more than eleven years of age when I left Madame
Bertrand, for so I still continued to call her after her marriage with
M. Boffuet. This man treated me so cruelly, that, child as I was, I
wished to die that I might escape from his tyranny. My dear Madame
Bertrand used to weep over me, and that I might not render her more
miserable than she was from the conduct of her husband, I always
endeavoured to disguise from her his treatment of me in her absence,
which was infinitely worse than when she was present. He considered me
as an intruder in his house, and one whom it was not incumbent on him to
support, in consequence of which he scrupled not to seize every
opportunity of depriving me of food.”
Already the heart of Angelo bled at every word uttered by his deserted
child, the child whom he, rich in every luxury, possessing ample means
to cherish and protect, had abandoned even before she was born, and
resigned to the mercy of strangers, who, insensible to the tenderness of
parental feelings, could without pity aggrieve and wrong her. Terrible
is the thought to a fond parent, that his tender child is left among
those who love it not, and to Angelo, though late inflicted, this pang
was not to be for ever spared. Perceiving the grief she excited in her
father, yet knowing well, keen as it was, it was the least, alas, which
she must cause him to suffer; she hastened over this part of her
narrative, and proceeded to later events.
“It was not however till extreme terror in the apprehension of a
threatened severe chastisement from the unfeeling Boffuet, for a
trifling fault, that knowing it would be impossible ultimately to escape
his vengeance, which would acquire increased fury only, from being
delayed, I seized an opportunity of flying secretly from the house,
unknowing where to bend my steps, and indifferent if I but escaped the
dreaded punishment. I wandered about among the most unfrequented
vallies, and mountains I had never trod before, till as the shades of
evening came on, I sat myself by a little rivulet behind the projecting
part of a rock; alarmed at the prospect before me, yet still more
alarmed at the idea of returning, and yielding to childish weakness, I
could not restrain myself from weeping bitterly. Presently I heard
footsteps approaching the spot; dreading lest it should be Boffuet in
pursuit of me, I started up, and with the wildest speed began to ascend
the rock, when a gentle female voice arrested my flight. ‘Do not be
alarmed, my child,--do not fly.’”
I ventured to turn, and beheld an elegant female leaning on the arm of a
gentleman, whose tender and compassionate looks helped to dispel my
fears and induced me to stop. The lady drew nigh, and taking my hand,
gazed earnestly in my countenance, then exclaimed to her companion,
“Steinhaussen--my God--how much like our dear Ida!”
“I thought so the instant I beheld her,” returned the Baron
Steinhaussen; then addressing me, “who are your parents, my sweet
child?”
“Alas, I know not,” answered I, bursting into tears--“I never saw them.”
“How!” exclaimed they both at once, “you are an orphan then?”
“No,” answered I, “I have an angelic mother, of whom I have heard much;
I have a father too, but he never saw me.”
“Tell me, sweet child,” cried the Baroness hastily, “why do we find you
here?--if you belong to any one, why do you not return home?”
“No, no,” cried I in agony, “that I will never do--sooner would I remain
here to perish with hunger or”----
“But wherefore?” interrupted the Baron in a soothing voice, “why would
you shun your home, my child?”
“I have no home,” I replied, “none at least that I have a right to
claim, and it is better to die here with hunger, where no one cares for
me, than of ill treatment where I should grieve at least _one_ heart by
my death.”
“But explain to us,” said the Baron; “we may find some means of
reconciling you to return home, or of”----
“My dear Steinhaussen,” cried the Baroness, “this poor child seems
determined not to return home; perhaps she has good reason; the
probability is, if she even yielded to our persuasions, she would not
long remain, or might be driven out when she would meet with none to
sympathise in her forlorn situation, or to protect her.--Let us then
take her with us for the present, and hear the particulars of her story
afterwards; if then we still deem it eligible for her to return to her
friends, or those at least who have the care of her, we will ourselves
accompany her to them, and do whatever we may conceive best to ensure
her future comfort. If, on the contrary, the reasons she adduces for
having fled, appear to us just and reasonable, we will keep her with us,
and she shall be to us instead of our dear departed Ida, whom she so
strongly resembles.”
“What say you, my child?” cried the Baron, “are you inclined to go with
us?”
“Oh, yes, yes,” I eagerly replied, “I should be too happy,” and running
to the Baroness, I seized her hands, and kissed them, exclaiming, “You
are so good, so like Madame Bertrand, whom I have been forced to quit.”
“Sweet child,” cried she, infinitely affected, “come with us at once,
and unless you wish it you shall quit us no more.”
“She took me by the hand, and I returned between them to their inn; the
kindness of the Baroness, and her endearing manners, induced me to tell
her all I knew of my history, while upon the ill treatment I had
received from Boffuet, as it had made the deepest impression upon my
mind, I expatiated with heartfelt bitterness. When I had concluded, the
Baroness, who had more than once shed tears during my recital, took me
in her arms, and exclaimed, “Poor deserted innocent--is it not a pity,
Steinhaussen, that this lovely child should return to be treated with
cruelty? neither do I perceive what purpose it can answer, since she is
not consigned to her parents--perhaps even they may never claim her.--It
will be mercy, sure, to keep her with us--let us determine then, we will
call her Ida in memory of our dear lost child; to-morrow early we take
our departure hence, no one in the interim can trace her hither; and
when we arrive in Germany, all search, should any be made after her,
will be useless.”
“I could perceive in the Baron’s countenance as he gazed on me, that he
had a strong desire to accede to the proposal of the Baroness, but
could not entirely reconcile himself to the idea. On observing this, I,
who desired ardently to remain with them, for Madame Bertrand had always
told me that perhaps I should never see my parents, and that they had
agreed to let me remain with her, yet inspired with courage, for the
thought of Boffuet was appalling to me, and in remaining with her I must
remain with him likewise; this terrible reflection was enough; I cast
myself on my knees before the Baron, and exclaimed, ‘Ah, I intreat you
do not leave me--do not force me back--yet if you determine, be assured
that I will not long remain, and then what may be my fate?’”
Angelo felt indignant at discovering that Madame Bertrand had concealed
from Agnes the repeated solicitations of her parents to have her
returned to them, but unwilling to prejudice her tender friend in his
daughter’s estimation, whose love for her alone had led her into the
error of this otherwise inexcusable concealment, he checked his anger
and forbore remark. Agnes proceeded.
“Well, I yield,” cried the Baron, “but upon one condition only, that
should we ever learn her parents desire to reclaim her, we may
unhesitatingly return her to them.”
“Be it so,” cried the Baroness, embracing me again, “I consider her now
as my own, and henceforth adopt her; for sure am I those parents who
could so long permit such a daughter to reside among strangers, without
a thought of reclaiming her, will never at a later period find renovated
affection springing up in their hearts, or desire to make search after
her.” Then turning to me, “Say, my dear child, will you in future permit
me to call you Ida? I shall look upon you as a daughter.”
“Oh, call me what you will,” answered I, “suffer me but to remain with
you.”
“The Baron and Baroness Steinhaussen were making the tour of
Switzerland, they had penetrated far into its interior, they had visited
its most sublime, romantic, and unfrequented parts, they were on the eve
of departing, when in one of their farewell rambles along the borders of
the lake they had encountered me. I considered myself supremely happy in
this accidental occurrence, and joyfully accompanied them on the
following morning, (the period which had been already fixed for their
departure). One thing alone embittered my happiness, it was the idea of
the sufferings of my dear Madame Bertrand, when she should find that I
no more returned. I longed to give her some intelligence respecting my
situation, but fear lest the tyrannical Boffuet, for the purpose of
making me endure some horrible punishment, should insist on my being
restored, was sufficient to deter me from, and make me shudder at the
thought.
“I shall pass over, my dear father, a period of several years, during
which time I was treated by my protecting friends in every respect as
their daughter, and was universally esteemed as such. They gave me the
name of Ida, which had been that of an only beloved daughter, who had
died in their arms at nearly the same age as myself, when first I
became known to them. Thus was I as happy as circumstances would permit,
and no inquiries respecting me having from that period reached them,
they had no other idea but that of considering me for ever as their own,
the Baroness frequently assuring me that she was uncertain which she
most loved, her son, still absent at Gottingen perfecting his education,
or myself.
“But although I was unclaimed by my parents, perhaps even my existence
unknown to them, not a day elapsed that they were absent from my mind;
of my sainted mother I loved to think, I remembered and cherished all
that Madame Bertrand had told me concerning her, and considering her as
something above mortality, I even addressed my prayers to her, and in
fond enthusiasm implored her influence to direct my conduct.
“That beloved portrait which Madame Bertrand had informed me her dear
hands had placed round my neck, when for the last time she saw me, I
gazed on every night with the holy fervour of a bigot, kissed and
piously worshipped. It was all I could call mine, it was almost my only
care. If accidentally I stumbled, unmindful of the pain or injury I
might feel, I examined eagerly my portrait; if that was safe, I was
indifferent to every other consideration. In sorrow it consoled me, in
sickness it cured me, if despondent I but gazed on it, hope and pleasing
prospects danced in my view. I lamented that it was only the _gift_ of
my dear mother, and that her own fair image was not added to the group;
in default, however, I would gaze on that of the Countess D’Albini, and
would endeavour to persuade myself that it was hers, or resembled her at
least. I had shown it to the Baroness Steinhaussen, as a miser shews his
gold; scarcely could I endure that she should touch it. “My dear child,”
said she to me, “you will lose this valuable ornament, and it is not
impossible but that at some future period its possession might be
material to you; give it into my hands, I will carefully preserve it for
you; you run great risk indeed in carrying it thus about you.”
“Ah, dear madam,” cried I, “by accident I can never lose it, I guard it
as it were my life, neither fraud nor violence could wrest it from me,
but if that were possible, I should never live to regret its loss; do
not then desire me to resign it to you, for with no one can it be more
safe than with myself.” The Baroness pressed me no further, and my
cherished treasure remained in my bosom.
Angelo raised his eyes to Heaven in grateful acknowledgment for the
happiness he had gained, and for the horrors he had avoided by its
fortunate preservation. Agnes proceeded.
“I had never yet beheld Darlowitz, the son of the Baron Steinhaussen;
all I knew of him was from his parents, who spoke of him in terms of
rapture; and I learnt that he was affianced to a beautiful female who
frequently visited at the house, and never failed to make the minutest
inquiries respecting his health, pursuits, and when he would return
home. At length he returned.”--
Agnes paused--“He was elegant and accomplished”--deep blushes covered
her ingenuous face, and bosom; she cast her tearful eyes upon the
ground; the soul of Angelo grew sick within him--he trembled, and his
emotion incapacitated him from speaking.
Agnes continued in a faltering voice, “He conceived an attachment for
me, in preference to her to whom he was betrothed--I--I--oh God! my
father, will you not spare me?” she exclaimed in an agony, and bursting
into tears.
“Oh, wretch! monstrous, and accursed wretch! that I am,” cried the
father, starting on his feet with the wild looks of despair--“Agnes,
Agnes, you are then infamous!”--
Agnes sobbed aloud, and casting herself at the feet of her
father--“Infamous do you call me, oh, my father!” she murmured,
“Speak, speak,--are you not?--oh! if you are not, say at once, and save
my brain from bursting!”
“--I--I--Darlowitz--I loved him--he--”
“He made you his wife--say that he did--oh! say it, Agnes!”--
“No, no”--cried Agnes, “I cannot say it, but”--
“But what?”--
“With joy he would have made me so.”
“Oh, God!--_tremendous_ God!” cried Angelo in a wild voice, and sinking
on his knees, beside his daughter, “I have deserved all this--yes, yes,
I _feel_ that I have. Agnes! my girl, my deserted helpless girl,” he
added, pressing her in his arms--“I will not--I _dare_ not reproach
thee. Speak to me in confidence then,--proceed, and let me know all. I
will endeavour to hear thee, and not yield to madness;--and for the
anguish I may feel, it is my merited portion. Rise, my beloved--rise,
and proceed.”
The drooping Agnes tremblingly arose, leaning on the extended hand of
her father,--he pressed her in his arms--re-seated her, and she thus
continued. “Though the Baroness loved me as a daughter, no sooner did
she discover the secret of her son’s attachment to me, than she became
half frantic; accident had revealed it to her, and one day when
Darlowitz was in my apartment conversing to me of his passion, she
entered and surprised us. “Is it thus, ungrateful girl!” she cried,
“that you reward my love? and you, Darlowitz, is it thus _you_ respect
the honour of your father?”
“I burst into tears; grief, shame, humiliation debarred me of the power
of speech; but Darlowitz approaching, took my hand, which on the
entrance of his mother he had relinquished, and said--“Weep not, my
beloved Ida, for are you not in reality my wife? and have I not sworn
never to consider as such, other than yourself? Madam,” proceeded he,
addressing the Baroness, “I loved Ida almost from the moment I beheld
her; she loved me in return, and she became mine. When you speak of the
honour of my father, remember the honour of your son, and feel that he
is bound by every tie to her, moral, human, and divine.”
“Oh! great God! Darlowitz,” exclaimed the Baroness, “you have become a
wretch, you are the seducer of innocence, of an unfortunate orphan
protected beneath the roof of the Baron; and while you have been guilty
of so abominable a crime, you will have the additional one of destroying
your father.”
“Ah, my dear mother,” cried Darlowitz, “my father possesses a firm mind:
if he be offended with his son, he can cast him from his heart; but
after what you have yourself said, you are a powerful advocate in the
cause of Ida, since if I have been already the wretch you describe, how
much _more_ infamous should I become by forsaking her? What reparation
can I make but swearing to be her’s for ever?”
“Retire, and leave me with Ida,” cried the Baroness indignantly to her
son.
“I will, madam,” Darlowitz replied; “but first, Ida, hear me,” he cried,
falling at my feet; “beware, my love and my wife, how you are prevailed
on to resign me; remember that I live but for you--by rash and fancied
heroism you may precipitate a fate you may regret, and gain no meditated
end.” So saying, he left the room; when the Baroness approaching me,
took me in her arms and wept over me: “My dear and injured child,” she
cried, “I can make you no reproach, you have suffered sufficiently; and
I alone, who should have foreseen that no one could behold without
loving you, I alone am to blame. Miserable am I, that a creature every
way so worthy, one whom I tenderly love, can yet never become in reality
my daughter. Listen to me with patience, and I will explain to you some
particular circumstances of which you are not aware, and which will
sufficiently show you, how impossible it is for Darlowitz, consistently
with honour and duty, to become your husband, or the husband of any but
Julia Falkenheim, to whom he is affianced.” At these words I covered my
face with my hands and groaned, for I considered Darlowitz as already my
husband.
“Hear me, my child,” pursued the Baroness, endeavouring to subdue her
own emotion--“the Baron Steinhaussen is peculiarly situated with the
Baron Falkenheim, father of Julia. Some years since he lost to him at
the gaming table nearly the whole of his personal property; he was
overwhelmed with despair, as the payment of the debt must be his ruin,
and perhaps have exiled him in shame and sorrow to a land where he might
live unknown. Under these circumstances it was that the Baron
Falkenheim, who courted an alliance with our family, which is more noble
than his, proposed to Steinhaussen to wave for ever his claims upon his
fortune, upon condition that he would promise his son in marriage to
Julia, adding that if he would accede to this proposition he should
consider the honour that would be done him more than an equivalent for
the debt.
“Though the family of Falkenheim is not so ancient as ours, it is highly
respectable, and Steinhaussen after some consideration yielded to the
terms proposed; the debt was in consequence cancelled, and Darlowitz
became the betrothed husband of Julia. Think, then, my dearest Ida, how
impossible it is for the Baron at this late period, to think of
retracting without appearing at once the most contemptible and
dishonourable of mankind. Should he discover the attachment of our son
to you, and the mutual vows which you have uttered, I am convinced he
would die at once with rage, or be bowed down to the grave with shame
and disappointment.”
“What could I reply to this? It was evident the Baroness desired me to
say the words, “I resign your son;” and perhaps, had I considered myself
alone, I should have yielded to the sacrifice. But I remembered the
powerful adjuration of Darlowitz, the wild yet disordered look with
which he had uttered, “Remember, I live but for you--by yielding to rash
and fancied heroism, you may precipitate my fate.” My heart was torn
with conflicting sensations, my brain was shaken by a confusion of
tormenting idea, and I could only utter, “For myself I care not--no one
cares for me--do with me as you will--but think of your son.”
“What hopes the Baroness might gather from these expressions of my
despair I know not, but she embraced me with an animated tenderness, and
blessed me a thousand times. Her hopes were however destined to receive
a check; while she had been conversing with me, Darlowitz, half frantic,
had flown to the Baron, acknowledged all that the Baroness had been so
anxious to conceal, and sworn before him that none but me should be his
wife!
“At this rash communication, which appeared to him not only to threaten
the destruction of his best prospects, but to render him a villain in
the eyes of the world, he raved with wildest passion, and reprobating
his son in the severest terms, swore in his turn, that if he did not
instantly retract his oath, he would consider him no longer as a son.
But Darlowitz remained firm, and to the alledged honour of his father
opposed his own. Boiling with terrible rage, he sought the Baroness, and
in broken sentences informed her of that which she already knew. It was
in vain that by her mild representations she sought to calm him, and
alledged her sanguine hope, that all would yet be well; she could
obtain only in return the most frantic ravings, or the peremptory
command, “Bid him then--force your son to retract at once!” Darlowitz
was unchanged by this violence, he vowed, fervently vowed, that his own
death or mine should alone separate us, and reiterating his vows to me,
dared to oppose them as a shield to the despair and indignation of his
father.
“The fearful emotion of the Baron Steinhaussen, and the shock his mind
had received, threw him into a raging fever and delirium; and in a few
days his physicians announced that his recovery was next to impossible.
“Now the time was nearly arrived that the marriage of Darlowitz with
Julia was intended to take place. The Baroness Steinhaussen finding the
attempt vain to move her son, directed the whole of her efforts to
induce me to resign him; while Darlowitz, distracted between his
conflicting duties, rushed like a maniac, from the apartment of his
father to mine, from mine to his father’s, knelt in deep remorse by his
bedside, wept in agony over me, and appeared no longer guided in his
conduct but by an impulse, which in the confusion of his feelings he
could scarcely identify.
“For me, I knew not how to act; the life of both father and son were
dearer to me than my own, and I only hesitated how to decide, from the
fear of sacrificing one or the other. At length the malady of the Baron
Steinhaussen encreased to such a degree that his end seemed rapidly
approaching; he had recovered his senses, and desired to behold his
son, and that I might accompany him; at this mandate my heart almost
died within me, for I felt as though I were going to witness the last
moments of one whom I had precipitated to the grave; and conscience
already loaded me with reproaches, far more severe than any I could
anticipate.--I attended however, and when, like an arraigned culprit, I
entered, I beheld with an acute pang, Darlowitz and the Baroness
kneeling by the bedside of the dying Baron, each holding a hand.
“As I drew nigh, the Baron turned on me his mournful eyes of tender
reproach, and faltered out my name. At this appalling sight, to behold
my benefactor dying, and through my means; to feel that but for their
benevolence to a friendless orphan, they might have lived for ever a
happy and united family, whereas from the ingratitude and baseness of
the viper they had cherished, it was doomed to prove their curse:--
“No, never!” I exclaimed as these ideas rushed through my mind, “No,
never, never shall the lowly object of your bounty prove a wretch so
vile! Live, my lord! live!” I pursued, throwing myself on my knees at
the foot of the bed, and stretching out my arms towards him, “live yet a
thousand years, for be assured that Ida shall not shorten your days.”
“The Baron endeavoured to raise himself in the bed, but could not, and
faintly murmured, “What is that I hear?”
“That Ida resigns Darlowitz!” I cried with increased animation, “and
will never mar the happiness of her benefactors.”
A sudden beam of joy illumined the dim eyes of the Baron, and in broken
accents he uttered, “Oh, generous Ida, you have saved my
life--Darlowitz, Darlowitz, my son!” Darlowitz sprang from his knees,
and with a solemn air approached me.
“Ida,” said he, “do you resign me?”
“I do, dear Darlowitz, I am no longer your wife, but henceforth your
sister only.”
“It is enough,” cried Darlowitz with a look of despair--“My father,”
turning towards the Baron, “Ida wills it--live--for I swear to become
the husband of Julia.”
“At these words the Baron uttered a faint cry, and sank into a swoon:
the agitation of sudden joy had overpowered his weak frame, and
threatened to terminate a life that grief had already so much
endangered. By proper applications he revived however, the sovereign
balm of hope filled his veins with fresh life, and rapid as had been his
illness, his recovery was almost equally so.
“I had solemnly resigned Darlowitz, and I resolved to behold him no
more; not that I dreaded my own weakness, but the wildness of his
despair. I therefore immured myself in my chamber, and to the intreaties
of Darlowitz for the admission of only a moment, remained inexorable.
“Though I had resolution to debar myself of the sight of my lover, I was
not equal to the harrowing idea of remaining in the house till he should
become the wife of another. I wrote therefore a few lines to the
Baroness, intreating that she would come to me without the knowledge of
Darlowitz. She hastened to obey my request, when I communicated to her
the anxious desire which I felt to quit an abode, where the heart-wrung
sacrifice I had made was continually present to my mind; adding, that
when removed from beneath the same roof with Darlowitz, he might think
less of me, and more of Julia Falkenheim.
“Heroic child,” cried the Baroness, “in every thing like yourself. The
Baron and myself have had it in contemplation to address you upon this
subject, but feared the possibility of wounding delicacy so noble and so
refined as yours. Too surely Darlowitz can never recover the passion
with which you have inspired him, while he knows that you remain beneath
the same roof with him; it is only by your absence that we may presume
to hope he may in time obtain a victory over his heart. But, my dearest
Ida, another motive prevented us from hinting to you what you have of
yourself proposed; we desired to render our beloved girl, the child of
our adoption, for ever independent of contingencies; and we feared that
if we declared to her our wish and intention of doing so, that her
delicate mind would feel wounded, conceiving we meant to compensate her
for a sacrifice beyond all price, or bribe her never more to reclaim it.
Now however there is no further cause of hesitation--learn then, my
child, that the Baron determines to secure to you a pension during your
life, more than adequate to your wants, and sufficient to enable you to
sustain an appearance befitting his daughter, for such he will ever
consider you, in whatever part of the globe you may fix your residence.
Further have I to add, my beloved Ida, that if you refuse this small
memorial of an eternal gratitude from your parents, so far below what
you have a right to claim, that you will have the reproach of
embittering our future lives, of humbling us to the earth, and of
robbing your noble sacrifice of half its value in our eyes; nay, so much
would your refusal wound the love and pride of the Baron, that perhaps
all would be rendered useless which you have done to secure his
happiness.”
“I threw myself into the arms of the Baroness. “Be assured,” said I,
“that I will refuse nothing which can add to your felicity; I believe
you know and value me too well, to propose to me any thing which you
would despise me for acceding to; for myself, I consider you, and ever
shall, in the light of parents, to whom I can never be humiliated; but,
my dear benefactress, perhaps I may not long exist to be a care either
to myself or you.”
“Ah, say not so, my beloved,” cried the Baroness, tenderly embracing me,
“have better thoughts, and live to close the eyes of one who loves you
as a mother.”
“Let me pass over certain events which I can never think of but with
renovated pangs; my secret departure, secret at least to Darlowitz, from
the dear cherished abode of my protectors; the agony with which I bade
adieu to the asylum of my hapless youth; but above all, let me hasten
over the marriage of Darlowitz with Julia, while I, a disguised and
secret wretch, hovered near the altar, saw him, and heard him with pale
anguished looks, air wild and abstracted, pronounce to another those
vows which once I had fondly hoped would have been mine alone. Yet I it
was exacted the sacrifice, it was to me that Darlowitz made it---- to me
that he sacrificed----” the anguish of Agnes would not allow her to
proceed; at the fond agonizing recollections her relation had called
forth, her heart bled afresh, and the tears which had been long
trembling in her eyes, now streamed down her pale cheeks, and she
audibly sobbed.
Angelo, unable to resist pity, took her in his arms; his soul was
tortured at the sufferings, while it gloried in the heroism of his
child.--“Weep not, my beloved Agnes,” he cried, “weep not over the past;
be consoled in the reflection that you have been more unfortunate than
guilty, and that your dignified conduct has been some expiation for an
error which is less yours, in effect, than mine, who should have been
near to protect and to preserve you.”
Agnes still wept upon the bosom of her father; her tears were an
innocent tribute to the past, for her heart was guiltless of even an
improper idea for him who was now the husband of another. Angelo
succeeded in soothing her, and she resumed.
“Much more remains not for me to say. Finding myself alone in the world,
destitute of friends, or of natural protectors, I determined to travel
into Switzerland, there to seek the dear mother of my childhood, the
only one I had ever known, and enquire if she had heard aught of my
parents, or could give me some intelligence respecting them. But, alas,
my dear father, I arrived at the well known spot, her cottage still
remained, but its former occupant dwelt in it no more, Madame Bertrand
had ceased to exist.”
“Madame Bertrand no more!” exclaimed Angelo, “not long since I heard
from her.”
“She is no more, my father,” answered Agnes, “it is three months since I
returned from Switzerland; when I arrived and enquired for her, M.
Boffuet met me at the door--he looked at me a minute and
exclaimed,--“Oh! is it you returned again?--but Madame Boffuet is dead.”
“What do I hear,” cried I, bursting into tears, “my dearest mother
dead?”
“Yes, yes,” replied Boffuet--“and I am growing old, and have occasion
for what little I have got.”
“I do not desire to intrude upon you,” said I, “admit me only for a
moment, and let me once more behold the interior of a dwelling where
passed my childhood with one who loved me.”
Boffuet still hesitated.
“I do not want any thing of you, M. Boffuet,” said I--“I am not at this
juncture quite so destitute as I have been.”
“Oh, if that be the case,” answered this mercenary and illiberal being,
“come in, Mademoiselle, and remain as long as you chuse.”
“I entered with a beating heart, and desired to be conducted to the
chamber where my dear friend had died. I knelt beside the bed where she
had breathed her last, I kissed the pillow where her poor head had lain,
bedewed it with my tears, and blessed God that she was now where
persecution and suffering could reach her no more.
“All this time Boffuet left me to myself; when I returned to him I found
his manners considerably changed, from gross rudeness to still grosser
adulation and the most constrained politeness.
“Mademoiselle de Montmorency,” said he, “I am happy to hear that you are
no longer in need of the bounty of strangers. I confess, when I first
beheld you, I thought you had come to reclaim that trifling sum
entrusted to Madame Boffuet for you against a time of necessity, but I
am pleased, for your own sake, that you had no such idea, as I must have
contested the claim.--Since you have no occasion for it, you cannot but
allow that it is a very inadequate return for the many years of
protection and support afforded you by myself and Madame Boffuet, who,
poor woman, was not certainly the wisest of her sex.”
“If I could have viewed with scorn or detestation any one who was
hallowed in my eyes, by having lived with, and conversed with my dear
departed friend, it would have been this wretch; but I pitied the
miserable meanness of his disposition, and without noticing his
observation, enquired of him if my dear Madame Bertrand had heard from
my parents since my departure, or if he could inform me of aught
respecting them.
“Madame Boffuet,” answered he, “certainly informed your parents of your
departure; I believe they were at that time in England; but excuse me if
I acknowledge that I never much participated in these interests of my
wife, and that she therefore seldom or ever shewed me the letters which
she received. Some little time back she had a letter from Italy, over
which she wept most bitterly, poor weak woman. Who was the author I
cannot pretend to determine, but in all probability it came from some
friend of your parents, informing her of a terrible calamity, for
nothing else surely could excite such immoderate grief.”
“And tell me, tell me,” cried I eagerly, “what became of that letter?
Oh! if you have it still, give it me; it may be the means of leading me
to my parents!”
“Why, I should be extremely happy, Mademoiselle,” returned he,
hesitatingly, “but in truth I was never a friend to concerning myself in
affairs which did not concern me; and when my wife died I destroyed all
her papers, and among them I suppose all the letters she had ever
received from your mother.”
“Oh! my God!” exclaimed I, “was it possible that you could act thus?
and was that last letter which you speak of among them?”
“Why, as to that, Mademoiselle--I cannot say it was.”--
“Oh then you have preserved it?” I cried; “give it to me.”
“No, indeed,” he replied with a frightful smile, “that met its fate
prematurely: since you are so inquisitive, Mademoiselle, I must tell
you. Madame Boffuet, poor woman, could never attend like another wife to
the concerns of her house. One day I had been out, and returning home
required my dinner; I found nothing prepared, and Madame Boffuet no
where to be seen. In a fit of rage I flew to her chamber, there I found
her shut up weeping over this very letter.--I own, I am now sorry for
what I did, but furious as I was, I snatched the letter from her hand,
exclaiming, “Is it thus that you attend to the concerns of strangers, in
preference to those of your husband? at least, you shall no longer have
this excuse for neglect;” so saying, with an uncontrollable passion I
threw the letter into the flames, and compelled her immediately to quit
her chamber, and attend to her domestic duties.”
“Poor Madame Bertrand!” exclaimed I, “dear persecuted friend!” when
perceiving the brow of Boffuet beginning to lower, I added, “Ah! had
that letter but been preserved, I think I could have forgiven the loss
of all the rest.”
“Oh, but I was glad to destroy my old tormentors, the letters,” answered
the unfeeling Boffuet, “it was the only revenge I could take for the
inconvenience they had caused me during her lifetime; but who expected
ever to see you again? you might have had them, Mademoiselle, if I had
known.”
“What could be said to a savage like this? I hastily took my leave of
him, with coolness indeed, but avoided reproaches which he would have
been incapable of feeling. I lingered a few days about my dear native
land, I wandered among the mountains of my childhood, among the fruitful
vallies, and along the magnificent borders of the Genevan lake. Unable
however to remain in a spot where I had no longer aught to interest or
attach me, and feeling that by perpetual change of scene alone could I
hope to banish ideas no longer to be indulged without crime, I departed
from Switzerland, and fondly dwelling on the slender shadow of hope
excited by the intimation of Boffuet, that the last letter my dear
parental friend had received had been from Italy, I determined thither
to bend my course, in the flattering idea that some chance might perhaps
occur, which might direct me to my parents, or at least discover to them
that their daughter still existed.
“It was owing to chance alone that I fixed my residence on this spot;
its retired situation pleased me, I thought it a more safe and proper
habitation than any which a gay town could afford me, and determined for
a time at least to remain in it. The features of every stranger of
either sex that passed my door, or that I accidentally encountered, I
have examined with an eager and impatient interest, as though some
secret intelligence should perhaps reveal a parent, or some one at least
connected with them: I can account no otherwise for the singular
sensation I experienced on beholding my father than from that powerful
instinct originating in force of blood, as it were, by which nature
draws resistlessly towards each other those connected by her sacred
ties.
“I can safely aver that I felt involuntarily drawn towards you; and
though I entertained a conviction that my admission of your visits must
impress you with an unfavourable idea of me, it was impossible for me to
resist an attraction which acquired fresh strength each time that I
beheld you. When absent I thought of you perpetually with an indefinable
interest, and when present, my heart would sometimes experience a
sudden emotion which I cannot describe, but which almost tempted me to
throw myself into your arms, and exclaim ‘Great God! I know not why, but
I love you, as if you were my father!’”
Agnes concluded, and in a sweet enthusiasm threw herself into the arms
of her real parent, who, overpowered by her tender and sacred emotion,
pressed her to his breast, and wept over her tears, which, though not
unmingled with bitter feelings, were yet the sweetest that for long he
had shed.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Angelo had recovered a long lost daughter; but how recovered her? The
fond gratulations of the father were checked by bitter anguished
reflections on the past; and while he wished to remember only that he
had found a child, he was doomed to feel that she could never be his
boast. Her who might have flourished a fair blooming rose beneath the
fostering hand of a parent, was blighted by the storm, and broken by the
foot of the stranger. Conscience whispered that the fault was his, and
that he who forsakes in infancy his offspring, must not hope to be
_blessed_ by them in glorious pride upon a future day!
Angelo viewed his daughter with the fondest affection; he idolized the
lovely artlessness of her character, admired her singular beauty, and
was charmed with her just and noble sentiments; yet still, still he
could not _triumph_ in her. In the midst of her brilliant qualities his
tenacious eye discerned a blemish, and such was his pride, selfish and
unjust, that he could not bear to acknowledge to the world that this
long-lost, long-sought daughter was not _perfect_! that the child, left
for years unaided on the wide desert of the world, had fallen a prey to
inevitable fate; he could not even endure the idea of passing her on
society for a creature perfect in character as in form, lest in an evil
hour her secret should be betrayed, and he be covered with a dreadful
shame, which, however merited, he felt that he could never support.
Thus tremblingly alive was the libertine to his _own_ dishonour, and
thus minutely sensible, could he feel and judge of a calamity that he
had entailed upon many a doting parent, fond husband, or honourable
brother, whose best hopes might have been fixed upon the fair female he
had destroyed. To a very few and select friends therefore alone was
Agnes by the apprehensive Angelo introduced, and even those he examined
with a lynx-eyed fearful anxiety, lest in the innocent looks of the
lovely Agnes they should read what he so trembled to have surmised.
Even the homage which was paid her, yielded him a pleasure alloyed by an
impatient and uneasy dread, lest some accident should occur to prove her
unworthy of it, and change it into scorn; if (indeed any could have
viewed with scorn a creature like Agnes), or when informed of her story,
have beheld her with other eyes than those of a respectful pity. No one
indeed could think of his daughter half so severely as did Angelo
himself.
Often did he pause on the idea of quitting with her the world, and
burying himself in a profound retirement, “where,” thought he, “I might
without fear or restraint admire the virtues of my Agnes; no worldly
considerations would then intervene to cover my cheek with the burning
blush of shame; forgetting her errors I might dwell only on her
excellencies, while the society of one so beloved, would be a sufficient
preservative against lassitude or ennui.”
But these reflections faded by degrees from the mind of Angelo; though
entering deep the vale of years, he still loved the world, and to think
seriously of quitting it for ever, was, he found, impossible. His was
not a mind to be thrown upon itself; frivolous habits and long residence
in society had unfitted him for the delights of solitude, which, so far
from possessing any charms to him, appeared replete with horrors.
At length upon a sincere investigation of his sentiments, he discovered
that he was in reality anxious for seclusion for his daughter only,
while he shuddered at it for himself. Could he induce her to leave the
world, where he durst not exhibit her in the proud light he wished, he
would procure for her some elegant retirement, and consider himself
supremely happy in her acquiescence. Thus with an unbecoming and morbid
pride, did he shrink from accompanying into society the child for whose
errors he alone was accountable, and with a selfish weakness still more
unpardonable at his period of life, hesitate to abandon a world from
which yet he wished to exile a young and lovely being, that but for his
own conduct would never have given him cause even for this shadow of
reproach.
Such had been the extremity to which his pride had prevailed, that he
had ordered Agnes to address the Baron Steinhaussen in a letter which he
dictated, thanking him for the protection which had been so long
afforded her, and simply intimating that an occurrence of recent date
had rendered it longer unnecessary for her to avail herself of their
continued bounty; requesting at the same time, that it might be
instantly withdrawn. Thus carefully avoiding throughout all recurrence
to the name of Darlowitz, and all mention of her having found a parent.
From that period the name of Steinhaussen was hateful to him; and when
Agnes would sometimes innocently dwell upon the kindness they had
demonstrated towards her, the impatient looks of her father would
speedily shew her that she touched upon a string which vibrated only
discord: by degrees, therefore, she dreaded, without knowing why, and
ultimately ceased altogether to allude to them.
It became necessary however to decide: either Agnes, being constantly
with her father, must at once be unequivocally introduced as his
daughter, or else some other situation must be thought of for her; for
in this desultory and unsettled state, liable to a thousand
inconveniences, subject to eternal alarm, it was impossible to continue.
One day when she was sitting in the same room with him, Angelo, who had
long had it in contemplation to propose to her a plan on which he
suffered himself to dwell with peculiar complacency, thought he had now
discovered a mode by which, without appearing to desire it, he could
lead her on, not only to yield but joyfully to accede to what he had in
view.
“Agnes, my dear child,” said he tenderly, taking her hand, “among all
those of my friends whom you have seen, which do you prefer?”
“I have no preference for any one, my dear father,” replied Agnes, “but
I esteem them all equally.”
“And is there not any one among them, Agnes, that you could esteem
sufficiently for a husband?” Agnes started back, and the colour forsook
her cheeks, then with her native artlessness she cried, tears rushing to
her eyes, “Ah, my dear father, I only implore you, talk not to me of
marriage; I hope and trust that your daughter cherishes no sentiment
which should be banished from her breast; but ah! she feels that her
heart cannot be offered to another--that--that it has been wedded once,
and can take no second husband.”
Angelo bit his lips, and his determination to pursue his purpose
acquired fresh strength. “Agnes,” said he, with a serious air, “him to
whom your heart was wedded, is now the husband of another.”
“’Tis true,” cried Agnes, bursting into tears, “and I love him for the
virtue which caused him to become so.”
“It is a point,” replied Angelo, with encreasing gloom, “that I have no
desire to hear discussed.”
“Oh! my father,” cried Agnes in a mournful voice, “I feel nothing which
you _ought_ not to hear confessed.”
“It is enough,” replied Angelo. “Time, I have often thought, might
effect a revolution in your sentiments, yet if not--”
“In the sentiments which I feel it no crime, but a glory to cherish, my
father,” interrupted Agnes, “time never can--then what----”
“Why then,” interrupted Angelo in return--“in the seclusion of a convent
should you learn that your present sentiments are in reality criminal!
There too should you expiate the offence of having entertained them.”
“Great God!” cried Agnes, sinking on her knees, and raising her hands
to heaven, “have I been so long in error then, and has conscience failed
to reproach me? can I be indeed the guilty creature which my father
represents me? Ah! if it be indeed so, in the gloom of a convent let me
hide my head; if I am innocent, that awful gloom will have no terrors
for me! but in uninterrupted communion with my own heart, I may behold
it as it is, repent over its sins, or rejoice in its purity.”
The heart of Angelo smote him at the pious and artless appeal of the
daughter he had so unjustly accused; but raising her from the ground, he
said, “Well do I know my sweet Agnes sins not voluntarily, even in
thought; but the holy solitude of a convent, by teaching her to look
into herself, will purify from every venial error, a mind already so
good, so desirous to be perfect; besides, to you, my daughter, the
world can wear no charms, you love not to mingle in society, you will
never become by marriage a material link in its great chain; when I die
therefore, you will have nor friends, nor husband, nor children, to
console you, and hence the retirement I propose must at all events be
for you a situation most eligible; there no petty ills can disquiet you,
no cares for the future annoy you, in every sister you will find a
friend, and when I quit this world it will be in the chearing reflection
of having left my child in the midst of the best and purest society,
among whom she shall have been honoured during my life, and shall prove
a benefactress to after it. One thing more I must add: my Agnes knows,
that she has a brother; he too is my child--having recovered my
long-lost daughter, to regain him must be now my care;--my anxious
search may lead me I know not whither, from land to land, perhaps even
to different quarters of the globe; could a tender female accompany me
in these incessant wanderings? for rest I shall not, while life remains,
from the attempt, vain as it may prove; but placed in a secure asylum,
for my other child I shall have no fears, and my mind will continually
turn to the chearing remembrance that _she_ is protected and safe.”
Angelo paused; the picture which he had drawn pleased the imagination of
his daughter, and soothed without alarming her mind. For her, monastic
seclusion had no terrors; with the charms of the world she was but
little acquainted, she saw too that her father wished her acquiescence,
and could not but acknowledge the justice of his last observation. If
she remained in the world she might at some future period be pressed
again to marry, an idea from which, above every other, her unhealed
heart revolted; by yielding to monastic seclusion she preserved her
fidelity to her first love, she yielded his place in her heart to no
mortal image, but to _that_ of God alone!
It was this last reflection which raised her to enthusiasm. Religion and
obedience spoke through the medium of an unconquered love, and while
influenced singly by that, she believed it was to them, she yielded: she
embraced her father, and in an animated voice, with glowing cheeks and
sparkling eyes, exclaimed, “Do with me as you will, my father! you have
recovered your daughter, you rejoiced when you did so, let her not prove
that she is unworthy of your love by being hostile to your wishes.”
With a mixed sensation of pleasure and remorse, Angelo returned the
fervid embrace of the innocent Agnes, who little surmised the complex
movements of her father’s heart, or the secret springs which actuated
his conduct. The strong power of her first love made perpetual seclusion
seem easy to Agnes, and robbed it of its repulsive terrors; but pure
indeed must be the love which takes refuge in _religion_, and innocent
the tenderness which may be animated by devotion!
CHAPTER XXIX.
Having so far compassed his purpose in gaining the acquiescence of the
gentle Agnes, Angelo, unnecessarily apprehensive that she might retract,
or desire at least to do so, hastened every necessary measure, and
shortly established her in the convent della Trinita delle Monache, one
of the most splendid receptacles in all Italy for the daughters of the
nobility, and accounted one of the richest in its ornaments, and
pictures. But to remain in Italy during the whole year of her noviciate,
was a circumstance which would materially derange the plans of Angelo,
who was now desirous of quitting it as early as possible.
He confided to an intimate friend his embarrassment, who instantly
proposed to exert whatever influence he possessed individually, and all
besides that he could command, to procure a dispensation from the Pope
for limiting the time of her noviciate to six months. Angelo hailed this
idea with rapture, and immediately put in motion every engine to
facilitate it.
He was soon given to understand that he need not doubt of success, and
he resolved therefore to remain in Naples during the indispensable
period, to visit his daughter in her convent, but never permit her to
leave it, lest intercourse with the world should make the contrast on
her return to it appear too forcible, and give her a distaste to the
idea of passing her life within its gloomy walls.
Thus, while Angelo hushed, without appeasing his conscience, in the
reflection that he was faithfully performing his promise to the departed
Gabrielle in seeking their children, while he exulted in the idea of
having discovered one, and how her spirit, could it look down, would
bless him, he did not, or would not think, what must have been her
feelings had she still lived, or what if from her sainted abode she
could have viewed his actions, to behold him forcing his only daughter,
in the pride of youth and beauty, into the wretched gloom of a
convent!--to look into his heart, and behold the unworthy feelings that
propelled the deed! to punish with unfeeling severity for his own
pride’s sake (what yet had originated in his own guilt), a creature who
might still have done him honour, and who was formed to have become an
ornament to society. Was this, ah! was this! fulfilling the fond wishes
of the tender mother? was this to cherish and protect the daughter whom
Providence had directed to him, that he might atone to her, for his past
injustice? that he might triumph in her, and that she might prove a
solace to his age! was this his atonement? his gratitude? to despise the
mercy he had received, and with sacrilegious pride, hasten to bury her
in the profoundest gloom?
But Angelo examined not so narrowly the secret recesses of his heart;
he took not to himself the full shame he merited; he was not impartial
in self-investigation; he loved not to view his actions in the worst
light, consequently considered his conduct as neither heinous nor
unjustifiable.
During the six months previous to the confirmation of the devoted Agnes,
he visited her daily. When a young girl is once within the convent
walls, no artifices are spared to induce her to desire to take the veil;
a monastic life is painted to the eyes of a novice in all those
fascinating colours calculated to excite the most fervent enthusiasm of
an ardent mind. Nothing trivial, nothing earthly is suffered to
intervene; all appears celestial, sublime, above mortality! the
imagination is deluded, the senses are entrapped, the heart is softened,
the resolution yields! Few who enter the gates reluctant even escape
the delusion; few can resist the fancied glory, but real vanity, of
seeming to soar _above_ the world!
The devoted Agnes however had not entered them reluctant; all therefore
conveyed to her mind redoubled fascination, while the worthy nuns,
superior as they appeared to worldly considerations, had yet their
vanities to gratify, among which not the least of them was to increase
the riches of their convent, already the richest in Naples--the
brilliancy of its decorations, of its altars, its sumptuous plate, the
jewels of the Virgin, the splendid offerings which adorned her shrine.
In courting the young Agnes they had a double vanity to gratify, the
vanity of having made a convert to their holy order, and of adding
through her means to the splendid riches of their house, by the
magnificent presents which they expected Il Conte D’Albini to bestow
upon them, as soon as she should have concluded her noviciate.
The period at length arrived; the fair Agnes, resigned, composed,
forming no wish to the contrary, yielded to every ceremony, submitted
her meek head to be despoiled of its treasures of waving gold, exchanged
her white veil for a black one, and immolating at the altar, reared by
frenzied superstition, the vanities of the world, and its pleasures
also, bowed before it a holy nun, yet not in the eye of Heaven a purer
being than before!
Satisfied, but not happy at the sacrifice to which the devoted Agnes
had submitted, Angelo returned home from the eventful ceremony, which
had raised an insurmountable barrier between her and the world, and
learned that a stranger had been extraordinarily solicitous to see him,
during his absence. Angelo gave orders that when next he came, he should
be admitted, and retired to his room.
In less than an hour he was informed that the stranger had returned, and
was waiting anxiously to see him. Angelo repaired to the apartment where
his visitor had been introduced; he beheld a stranger clad in deep
mourning, young and of an elegant, interesting appearance, who to his
polite request to be favoured with his name, appeared from agitation
incapable of reply. Observing his confusion, he paused a few moments,
and then in a gentle conciliating tone repeated his enquiry.
“My name,” at length faltered the stranger, addressing him in Italian,
“is _Steinhaussen_!”
Angelo started back, and muttered, “Hateful name!”
“Oh! hear me, my Lord,” cried Darlowitz; “as the father of my Ida, hear
me!--Ask me not at present how I have developed every circumstance, how
discovered you, for the relation at this juncture would be too long--but
I come--I come to atone, (if a wretch worthless as myself can atone,) to
the loveliest, the best of beings, for the miseries which my destructive
love brought on her!--The premature death of a wife by a fatal accident,
who had no fault, but that she was not Ida, has rendered me unexpected
freedom. I come then to implore pardon of the father, to beseech him
that he will not refuse me his heavenly daughter--that he will not
refuse to me the name of her husband!”
Angelo, who had been endeavouring to restrain the rage which was
kindling in his breast till Darlowitz should have concluded, that he
might at once strike him to the earth, by the dreadful intelligence of
his daughter’s fate, stepped back a few paces, and waving his hand,
exclaimed with a proud fierceness,--“Go, go, young man--your Ida is _a
nun_!”
“What do I hear?” exclaimed the unhappy Darlowitz, “My Ida a nun?”
“I have _said_,” haughtily replied the unmoved Angelo, “and have no
time to waste in useless words.”
“I’ll not believe it!” cried the half frantic lover, “I’ll not believe
it! cruel father!--you never could compel my young and spotless beauty
to the eternal gloom of a cloister!”
“Spotless she would have been, but for _thee_!” cried Angelo in a rage;
“having then destroyed the daughter by thine artifices, dare not to
insult the father by insolent reproach! Depart at once!--my blood boils
to take revenge on thee!--Hasten, I say--I would not willingly _murder_
even the seducer of my child!”
“Language such as this,” cried Darlowitz, “affects me not; hear me, my
lord; if it be indeed true that you have consigned my Ida to a living
death--that never now I may possess her--surely--surely you will not
refuse to despair such as mine that I should behold her once more; let
my own eyes convince me that she is removed from me for ever; then
solemnly do I promise to molest you no more.”
There was an expression of mournful wildness in the eyes of Darlowitz as
he uttered these words, that softened even the heart of Angelo;
conscience brought for an instant before his eyes the crowded mirror of
his past life--did it become _him_ to be thus rigidly severe? He paused,
then answered, “Well,---- well, I agree to your request; you shall,
since you wish it, convince yourself of the truth of what so idly you
appear to doubt; but it must be upon certain conditions.”
“Name them!” exclaimed Darlowitz.
“You shall see her, but she must not know it; you must be disguised, and
promise not to approach too near the grate.”
“I accept your conditions, my lord, with gratitude accept them, and
promise not to infringe----”
“Enough,” cried Angelo with returning haughtiness--“To-morrow, an hour
before noon, I will await you here;” then slightly bowing he quitted the
room; and the wretched Darlowitz, who had entered it, his heart panting
with hope, departed from it oppressed by despair.
On the following morning, somewhat before the appointed time, he made
his appearance before Angelo; he was wrapped in a loose coat, a large
hat was pulled over his eyes, and his purpose being to have only a last
look at Ida, he agreed to remain almost behind Angelo, during the short
moment he was to remain.
They walked on in silence to the convent, Angelo not even deigning a
look on his despairing companion,--they were admitted, approached the
grate, and the fair Agnes was informed that her father awaited her.
Instantly she obeyed the summons, and drawing near the grate, put
through her hand for her father.
At sight of that lovely countenance enveloped in a sable veil, as the
fair moon dimly appears through a gloomy cloud, its beauty shaded, but
not concealed,--at sight of that well known hand thrust through the iron
bars of her prison--at sight of that delicate form, immured in an
eternal captivity, the miserable Darlowitz forgot in an instant his
promise! his resolution, his disguise! he rushed towards the grate,
uttering a loud cry, and no longer master of himself, he seized the hand
intended for her father, and covered it with kisses and with tears! “Oh!
Ida, Ida! my beloved!” he exclaimed in a voice of piercing anguish, “is
it _thus_ that I behold thee?--thou who mightest have been my wife, whom
on the wings of unbridled hope I flew to make for ever mine!”
But who can describe the emotion of Agnes on recognizing her lover? She
uttered a shriek of despair, and would have fallen to the earth had she
not caught the bars of the grate; while Angelo, fired with
uncontrollable rage at the frantic imprudence of Darlowitz, and his
infringement of his promise, seized him with violence by the arm, and
exclaimed, “Villain! unworthy villain! you have forfeited your
honour!--Unhand my daughter instantly, or dread my vengeance!”
“I despise your threats! I despise your vengeance!” answered Darlowitz:
“inhuman father! thus to have precipitated your child into the abode of
eternal misery!”
“Wretch! is it for _you_, who have destroyed her, to talk thus!” raved
Angelo in fury, and half drawing forth his stiletto.
“Take back the reproach, unnatural parent!” cried Darlowitz, “it is
_you_ that have destroyed a creature, who but for your interference,
might have been happy!”
“By holy heaven! if thou speakest another word,” cried Angelo looking
fiercely upon him--“if thou dost not instantly quit this sacred spot
profaned by thy presence, I will bury my poniard in thy heart!”
“Do so!” said Darlowitz with bitterness, “add _murder_ to thy crimes,
for I am unarmed, and would not, if I could, lift my hand against the
father of Ida! but this spot I will not quit while mine eyes may gaze
upon my adored beauty!”
“Oh I entreat thee! Ida entreats thee to go, Darlowitz!” cried Agnes in
a voice of agony.
“My beloved!--my _wife_!--do you bid me quit you?” cried Darlowitz in
mournful anguish, “Oh, thou! who shouldst have been my bride--thou hast
wedded the tomb!--thou who art my affianced wife--what ties more holy,
more sacred can exist that should sever us?--none!”
“Monster of sacrilege!” cried Angelo--springing upon him, no longer
master of himself--“I have heard too much!” and plunging with frantic
rage his poinard in his heart, “take,” he added, “the fate thou hast
courted, and I have too long delayed!”
The hand of Darlowitz, that in passionate eagerness had been twisted
round the grate that enclosed his love, still essayed to support him,
that he might obtain of her a last look! But the powers of nature were
not sufficient to keep pace with the desires of his soul, he was
compelled to relinquish his hold, as the faintness of death came over
him; his eyes still dwelt in dying fondness upon Agnes, till bathed in
blood he sunk to the earth no more to rise!
The shrieks of the devoted Agnes, when she beheld her lover fall,
resounded through the silent cloister, along the vaulted echoing aisles,
and recalling Angelo to his senses he beheld what he had done! Horror
possessed his soul! and he deplored the rashness of which he had been
guilty. Self, however, began to predominate in the wild confusion of his
ideas--he saw that to remain an instant where he was, might be fatal to
him; for he had not only committed murder, but sacrilege, of which a
moment before he had accused with scarce a shadow of reason the wretched
Darlowitz; he saw that punishment must be the inevitable consequence of
prompt detection, and that by immediate flight alone, could he hope to
avoid both.
These reflections passed through his mind like lightning--he heard
footsteps approaching, and swayed by the resistless impulse of self
preservation, he darted from the spot.
Scarce knowing what he did, he directed his guilt-sped steps to the
residence of a friend, and with looks pale and frenzied imparted to him
what he had done. This friend, Il Conte Verospi, one with whom he was in
habits of strictest confidence, and the same who had advised him with
respect to Agnes, to procure a dispensation from the usual term of
noviciate, again employed his powers for the service of Angelo, and
firm, collected, recommended to him that he should instantly use his
utmost speed to gain the dominions of the Pope, for which purpose he
proposed to lend him one of his fleetest horses, promising that he would
take every possible care of his interest during his absence, and send
him the earliest intimation of all that might occur respecting him.
“And my daughter! my poor Agnes!” cried Angelo with a wild abstracted
air.
“Be assured I will early inform myself respecting her;--I will hasten to
the convent the moment you are gone, and send you intelligence;--Fly!
fly at once! if life is still dear to you!”
Angelo felt that it was, his silence was sufficient acknowledgment that
it had not yet lost all its charms for him; his friend seized him
hastily by the arm, led him through a private way to his stables, not
chusing even to entrust a servant with the least particle of his
situation, with his own hands made ready for him one of his best horses,
and hastened him to mount. Angelo was unable to speak, he pressed in
silence the hand of Verospi, and set forward at full speed in the
direction which he had pointed out to him.
CHAPTER XXX.
Arrived in Rome, Angelo awaited there only till he might receive some
intelligence from his friend, when he determined to lose no time in
embarking immediately for France, passing through Paris, which he
desired once more to revisit, and thence proceeding immediately to
England.
Mean time he remained for two days in the utmost privacy, when he
received the anxiously expected letter from Verospi, which informed him
of what he had not before entertained a doubt, that the ill-starred
Darlowitz had expired on the spot; that the convent was in the utmost
horror and confusion at such an outrage having been committed within
their precincts; that nevertheless they desired for their own sakes to
render the affair as little public as possible; and Verospi added, that
for the sake of Agnes it would be expedient to make some delicate
compensation to their house in the form of a magnificent offering.
He concluded thus: “Happily we discovered that the rash Steinhaussen did
not come entirely alone to this country, he was accompanied by an
intimate friend, to whom we had the melancholy task of committing his
lifeless body. But endeavour to console yourself, my dear friend. The
youth was wild and imprudent, and rushed upon his fate; _your honour
required you to act as you did! had I been in your situation, I feel I
must have done the same_? It is an event which, however humanity may
lead us to lament, reason, honour, and the _usage of society_, tell us
it was impossible to avoid.
“For your fair daughter, be under no apprehensions; I will attend daily
to enquire after her health. It is true she is at present in a state of
the wildest delirium, but she will speedily recover, and all will be
well. Let me conclude by advising you to put immediately in execution
your projected plan--to quit Italy at once, and above all, for the sake
of diversifying the scene, and to banish uneasy reflections from your
mind, to pass a few months at Paris, previous to returning to England.
Mean time I wish you health and happiness.”
Notwithstanding the futility of the observations contained in this
letter, it conveyed to the heart of Angelo a balm more consolatory than
the intelligence it gave inflicted pain. He was happy to find that
another, and one of whom he had an high opinion, would have acted as he
had done, and this reflection abated the remorse which he had felt, and
helped to reconcile him to himself.
Thus is error disseminated, and such is the language man holds to man;
their mistaken ideas of honour lead them readily to excuse in others
that which on similar false and destructive principles, they would feel
no remorse in being guilty of themselves. At the shrine of barbarous
custom, the happiness and lives of individuals are daily immolated,
society becomes in consequence more corrupt, and the aggregate of human
misery increased!
Agreeably to the advice of his friend, Angelo departed from Rome, first
however thanking him for the valuable letter he had sent him, which he
declared to have lightened his soul of half its oppression; then stating
to him his intended movements, observed that he should make no stay till
he arrived at Paris, where he hoped to find a letter waiting for him,
informing him of the welfare of his daughter, respecting whom he
entreated him to enquire daily.
In justice to Angelo, however, be it said, that though he decided to
visit Paris before his return to England, it was not so much to
diversify the scene, as his friend expressed it, as to gratify the
earnest desire he felt, of learning, perhaps through the medium of the
infamous Milborough, (if still she continued to reside there) some
intelligence of his son, whom fondly he endeavoured to hope might either
have returned to her, or given her some information of himself.
He embarked accordingly at Civita Vecchia, landed at Toulon, pursued his
way through France without relaxing his speed, and stopping only to take
necessary rest till he arrived at Paris; when allowing himself only a
few hours of repose, unable to controul his natural impetuosity, he
hastened to the abode of the Marquis St. Evremond, chusing rather to
enquire first of him concerning Milborough, ere he sought an interview
with that detested female.
Happily for his impatience, he found St. Evremond at home, and passing
hastily over customary salutations, reverted to the principal occasion
of his visit.
“Oh, that Englishwoman!” replied St. Evremond, seeming suddenly to
remember whom he meant--“Ah!--she has long ceased to glitter a star in
our hemisphere!”
“Know you then whither she is gone?” hastily demanded Angelo, unable to
relish gaiety at this moment.
“Would you know?” answered the Marquis laughing--“she has retired to one
of our petit maisons!”
“How!” exclaimed Angelo, “she was not mad!”
“Not certainly when I had the pleasure of introducing you to her,”
replied St. Evremond, with the utmost nonchalance; though I think she
gave some symptoms of derangement that night; but shortly after, it was
conceived that an abode of that nature was most proper for her.”
“Do not trifle with me, I beseech you!” exclaimed Angelo, “but if you
are really serious, be more explicit in your information.”
“Well, you must know then,” resumed the Marquis, “that after that
memorable night, when there appeared to be some secret between you,
which neither I nor any one else could fathom, whether the company began
to entertain certain suspicions detrimental to her character, or whether
they began to be weary of her, I cannot pretend to determine, but she
was shortly forsaken by the whole of the gay world, and absolutely
shunned by the better part. But mark me, Count; I do not wish to pay my
nation the compliment of possessing either much delicacy or much
discrimination; if they can obtain amusement, they are not fastidious
about the means; I simply suppose, that as they are fond of novelty, and
as after one visit to la belle Angloise, you saw as much of her as you
could in twenty, they grew literally tired of her, and therefore it
became the fashion to forsake her, and a crime in the court of our
arbitrary goddess, after once she had decreed this, to notice her.
“You know, fashion here is omnipotent: one of our first rates gave the
word, looked cool on her, shrugged her shoulders, and remained silent
when she was praised. The infection instantly caught, it spread like
wildfire; to be seen with her became a barbarism, and going into her
house was sufficient to exclude you for a week from every other.--La
belle Angloise was in consequence deserted by every creature here; she
was considered as no longer in the world, and might as well have resided
among the sandy deserts of Arabia. What must she do in this dilemma? she
applied to a never failing but treacherous friend, one whose potent
influence exhilarated as it led to the grave, and whose aid, report
loudly proclaimed, she had ever had recourse to. She permitted herself
to be conquered by this subtle soother, its ardent fires mounted to her
brain, and produced there an inflammation so violent as to bring on
raving delirium, which ultimately ended in a total privation of reason.
“Ascertained to be absolutely in a state of madness, it was deemed
necessary for the present to confine her in one of our petit maisons,
from whence however, should she not shortly recover, of which not the
smallest hopes are entertained, it is intended to remove her to the
Bicêtre, the hospital for lunatics, and incurables, as it is proved that
she has no resources in this country, and draws none from any other.
Before her absolute derangement, finding herself suddenly so isolated,
she surprised me one morning at my lodgings, and after reproaching me
with her best powers of rhetoric, peremptorily asked me, for what cause
I had abandoned her.--What could I reply? I lamented her situation, but
fashion, _our_ goddess of reason, would not permit me to break through
her rules.--This I hinted to her; she raved with fury, I bowed, and left
her my apartment.”
The Marquis concluded; he had related her story with a smile upon his
countenance; he had not paid even the tribute of a moment’s seriousness
to her dreadful state! Seen with contempt, she was remembered with
indifference--in her best days, she had excited no interest, in her
misfortunes no pity.
Such is ever the fate of the female, who, by excelling in infamy alone,
obtains the short lived triumph of a moment, despised even by the
ephemeral beings she attracts, or execrated by those her false glitter
may have unhappily misled.
Angelo heard the relation which baffled his hopes without a sentiment of
regret, but on that account. He felt no surprise that a dreadful habit,
by which he knew her formerly distinguished, should have grown upon her
in the degree, and been resorted to in the shocking excess described by
St. Evremond.
Well he knew that the wretched Milborough possessed nor mind nor soul:
transferred by her vile arts from a menial situation to one of
splendour, and then again justly sunk into worse than pristine
degradation, her weak reason was not adequate to support the change, nor
the tormenting reflections that assailed her. Destitute of every merit,
she was no longer young nor even attractive; who would be the consoling
friend, who would sympathise with a female like her, and reduced to her
situation? The result then was obvious, and that which could banish
reflection, blind her to the present, and divest her of care for the
future, was the only resource to which she could eagerly fly.
Yet he formed a wish to behold her, not because he felt the remotest
interest for her, but perhaps she was not so mad as St. Evremond
represented--perhaps she might know him!--perhaps, brought by her
situation to a sense of her crimes, she might experience remorse, and
inform him if she knew aught respecting his son. These ideas passed
rapidly through his mind; he looked at St. Evremond, and exclaimed,
“Marquis, cannot I see the hapless wretch?”
The Marquis burst into a laugh. “What! have you not seen enough of her,
Count?--pardon me, but I thought you had!--you can see her, certainly;”
when perceiving Angelo look grave, he added, “I will even accompany you,
if you please; but I absolutely confess to you, though I would not, have
it breathed, that I paid her a visit a week ago, which was lost on her
however, as she did not know me.”
“Well then, you can go with me at once,” cried Angelo.
“When I have dined,” answered St. Evremond, “it will be too late--in the
evening I am engaged,--if you will accompany me whither I am going, I
promise to attend you to-morrow morning on your philanthropic expedition
to the fair insensible.”
To this proposition Angelo with reluctance acceded; he dined with his
gay companion, and could not separate from him till a late hour of the
night.
On the following morning, agreeably to his promise, the Marquis agreed
to accompany Angelo to the wretched abode where he believed Milborough
at present was. When they arrived, they were informed that she had been
removed three days ago to the Bicêtre, as incurable.
At this intelligence, St. Evremond shrugging his shoulders exclaimed,
“Pauvre diable! We have nothing to do but to return then,” he added,
addressing Angelo; yet at his earnest entreaty at length consented to
accompany him to this receptacle for lost humanity, the abode of the
most terrible woe! though not without complaining of the waste of time
which might be so much more agreeably spent.
When they reached the Bicêtre they inquired concerning Milborough, but
were answered, that no one could be permitted to visit her, as she was
in a state that rendered it improper for her to be seen. By dint of high
bribery however they were secretly admitted. The instant they were
within the walls the most terrible, and varied din assailed their
shrinking sense; mournful cries! terrific shrieks! lengthened moans! and
echoing peals of laughter, as if in mockery! As they passed along the
various doors, here the loud discordant song attracted pity from the
hardest heart! there the wild unconscious solitary whispered aloud his
secret of fancied importance! here the lover reproached in bombastic
strain his mistress who was not by! and there her who had been forsaken,
implored the compassion of him who heard her not, and who had long since
forgot that he had ever known her!--Oh! human nature! to what an abyss
of woe art thou reduced, when the fine chords of the mind are entangled
in confusion, or disorganised by madness--Oh! most pitiable of
calamities! with which mysterious Providence permits his creatures to be
afflicted!--Oh! man! _what art thou_, when such becomes thy state!--At
length they reached the spot where the miserable Milborough was
confined.
Here the sight which met the eyes of Angelo, whose nerves were less
rigid than those of the Frenchman, was almost more than, with all his
just abhorrence of her, he could endure.
Sitting half naked on some straw, secured round the waist by a massy
iron chain to a ring in the wall, raved in wildest madness the insensate
Milborough! The garments that partly covered her, (for in her paroxysms
she had torn them almost to tatters) exposed to view that wretched
person, bearing evident marks of the treatment she had necessarily
received. Her hair fell around her in wild disorder, her starting eyes
rolled rapidly in their sockets, her cheek was haggard and pale, and in
her whole aspect there was an expression of savage fierceness, that
_shocked_ rather than _interested_ the beholder.
When Angelo first entered, she was heaping straw upon her head, but on
observing him she suddenly sprang up, and whether or not she for an
instant recognised him, the most dreadful fury took possession of her,
and she made an attempt to rush towards him! Failing of course, from the
confinement of her chain, she uttered a fearful yell, clapped her hands
together repeatedly, and bursting into a loud discordant laugh, which
echoed through the terrible abode, and seemed multiplied by a thousand
others, she leaped and danced with antic movement, and struggled to
escape, till, exhausted by a violence that the strength of madness alone
could give, she sunk exhausted down.
Unable to endure a repetition of this horrible scene, and finding it
vain to expect aught like reason (in which hope alone he had visited
her) from a wretch so lost, he precipitately left the spot, resigning to
a fate dreadful, yet justly merited, her who had barbed the keenest
arrow for the heart of Gabrielle, the envenomed poison of which had
festered there, and sapped the source of life! Her who had rendered him
detestable in his own eyes, and who had filled his breast with remorse,
excited a feeling of melancholy, but no compassion for her state, in the
breast of Angelo.
Men love not the remembrance of their crimes; firm friendships can be
never founded on the basis of guilt; hence the wicked have no sympathy
for each other in the hour of adversity. The remembrance of a good
action performed together by the virtuous, diffusing a feeling of
complacency over their souls, may draw them resistlessly towards each
other, even after years of variance or disunion; but the guilty fly from
those who remind them of their sins, and hate those who were the
partners of their guilt.
As Angelo returned home, he inquired at the post-office if any letters
had arrived for him from Italy; one was put into his hands, which by the
superscription he saw was from Verospi; he hastily tore the seal, too
impatient to wait for its perusal till he reached his lodgings.
It contained however but few lines, and those of little import save what
regarded Agnes, of whom Angelo, with a pang of remorse, read, that
although her delirium had left her, it had been succeeded by a
melancholy, so settled and profound, as to give some colour for
apprehension that it would ultimately become rooted.
“She seldom,” added Verospi, “answers when addressed, or if she does,
wholly from the subject, never of herself addressing any one. Her air is
mournful, solemn, abstracted; in person she is considerably reduced, her
cheek is paler than death, and though in general the expression of her
countenance is that of piteous resignation, if I may be allowed the
idea, I have sometimes seen a wildness in it that has excited in me some
alarm lest her intellects should be incurably deranged. But these, I
trust, are only the fears of one interested in your welfare, and hers;
all will yield to time; be assured they are but latent effects of
certain occurrences, the remembrance of which have not yet ceased to
haunt her imagination. But that you forced a promise from me at
parting, to inform you punctually respecting her, I should not have
enlarged so much upon a subject which I fear you will dwell on too
deeply.”
Notwithstanding the endeavours of his friend to treat lightly the
situation of Agnes, the vivid imagination of Angelo beheld her already
stretched upon the bed of death, or, thought far more horrible! perhaps
in a state resembling that of the wretched being he had just quitted.
“But no! no,” he cried, remembering the gentle sweetness of Agnes, “so
fair a mind can never be possessed by the infuriate dæmons of despair or
madness like that I have beheld, appropriate only to the ever stormy
soul and the degenerate mind of a Milborough! Agnes may sink to the
grave, weighed down by insupportable woe, but she will die like an
angel, and the pure soul quitting her body without a struggle, will
excite no horror in its flight!”
His first impulse was to return immediately to Italy, but the reflection
of his son, of whose fate he was in utter ignorance, prevented him from
yielding to it. Besides, his return, so far from rendering the smallest
benefit to his daughter, would revive in her mind, with a force that
might prove fatal, events that the power of time might perhaps
obliterate; a remote idea too of the inconvenience, if not danger, which
might probably still await him there, operated completely to deter him.
To remain longer in Paris, was now however unnecessary; he therefore
wrote to Verospi informing him of his meditated departure, desiring that
he might address his next to him in England, most earnestly entreating
that he would continue to pay Agnes every attention, to conceal nothing
from him respecting her, and concluded by a request that he would lose
no time in presenting to the convent in his name a sumptuous golden
censer with massy chains, and a diamond cross for the bosom of the
Virgin. This done, and having from the shortness of his stay nothing
material to arrange, he early on the following morning quitted Paris,
and with desponding mind embarked for England.
CHAPTER XXXI.
We pass over a period of several months during which Angelo was
indefatigable in his search, and incessant in his endeavours to discover
his son. To gain even the remotest intelligence of him, he left no means
untried, he ransacked town and country, and offered the most
considerable rewards to whomsoever could give even the smallest trace of
him.
All proved vain, and Angelo was at length compelled to admit the idea
that he could not be in England, perhaps not even in Europe, so large a
part of which he had already traversed, but rather that in some rash
momentary impulse, he had either trusted his life to the waves, or
seeking death in the field of battle, had perished in another part of
the globe. Ah! erring father, happy thou, had such been the destiny of
thy son.
From Verospi he had heard more than once since his residence in England;
the unfortunate Agnes still remained in the same hopeless state,
rendered still more hopeless from its long continuance; and as the
terrible idea pressed heavily on his mind, that ere long he might lose a
daughter, it redoubled his longing anxiety to recover a son.
One evening, towards the close of summer, Angelo, as was frequently his
custom, rode towards the country; gradually his mind became absorbed in
the reflection of the past; this offered only painful images, and he
reverted to his son, his present probable situation; the idea brought
with it others, still more painful, and deeply musing he unconsciously
resigned the reins to his horse, indifferent what path he pursued.
Thus for some time he wandered on, when his horse slightly stumbling,
aroused him to the recollection of the present, and he observed that it
was nearly dark, and that he was entering a solitary path, unarmed and
unaccompanied: checking the animal therefore, he thought of returning
homewards, but scarcely had he retraced three paces of the way, than he
beheld a person spring from an adjoining thicket, who galloping swiftly
towards him, immediately on reaching him seized his horse’s bridle, and
presenting a pistol to his breast, exclaimed in a smothered voice--“Your
gold instantly, or you die!”
Angelo, becoming sensible of his imprudence, perceived that he had
encountered a highwayman: he was masked, but his figure, which was
undisguised, resembled not that of a vulgar ruffian, wearing on the
contrary an appearance of youth and elegance, which caused Angelo to
consider with surprise a conduct so inconsistent with it. Unarmed
however, a weapon at his bosom threatening instant death, the present
was no time for resistance or remonstrance, or for an exertion of
courage hazardous as vain. Calmly therefore complying with the request
of his assailant, he gave into his hands all he possessed about him, and
then could not avoid observing--“You appear but young, my friend, and
your profession is a dangerous one.”
“True,” answered the robber in a low voice, “but we can meet death only
once, and how soon I encounter it I care not!” so saying he slightly
bowed, and darted away with inconceivable velocity.
Angelo pursued him with his eyes as far as the darkness would permit; he
could not reconcile his profession with his appearance, and though he
had received convincing proof that whatever he might think, they were
not incompatible, he felt pity for one whom nature seemed so little to
have fitted for a course so desperate, and so degrading. Indulging
these ideas as he proceeded onwards, he perceived two men on horseback,
rapidly advancing, whom from their air, however, he did not imagine to
be approaching with hostile intent. One of them respectfully accosting
Angelo, as he drew near, inquired if he had been on the S---- road.
“I have,” returned Angelo, surprised at the question; “for what purpose
do you ask?”
“Pardon me,” replied the man, “but have you been attacked?”
“I have,” answered Angelo, “and robbed;” now supposing that their
enquiries originated only in motives of personal safety.
“And he who robbed you,” added the other, “appeared a young man, and
rode a brown mare, did he not?”
“He did.”
“One question more--did you observe what direction he took?”
“I did,” Angelo answered, at the same time naming and pointing out the
path.
“We are obliged to you,” returned they; “we are in pursuit of him, he
robbed a gentleman on the same spot yesterday evening; your description
tallies so exactly with his, there can be no doubt of his being the same
person.”
“He was masked!” cried Angelo; his natural humanity interposing on
discovering these were the minions of justice, “I saw not his face,--it
was dark, I could not swear to his person!”
“But the other gentleman can,” replied one of the men; “his face was
then uncovered, he is but a young man,” he added with an unfeeling
smile, “and has not yet learnt caution.”
“Nor can we now give him time to learn it,” added the other: so saying,
and thanking Angelo for his information, they rushed off at full speed
in the direction he had pointed out.
Chagrined and distressed that he had been so explicit, gladly would
Angelo have retracted all he had said, and wistfully did he look around,
vainly anxious to behold the youth, that he might warn him of his
danger. Dissatisfied with himself that he should be an involuntary
means of depriving a human creature of existence, and more particularly
one in whose unfortunate fate he felt some interest, he yet secretly
hoped that he would be able to elude his pursuers, and when he
remembered the spirit of the animal on which he was mounted he flattered
himself this hope was not irrational.
Some few days after this adventure, which had so unusually impressed the
mind of Angelo, he accidentally read in a diurnal print that the
highwayman who had for some time past infested the S---- road had
successively robbed two gentlemen, and was supposed to have committed
other similar offences, had been apprehended, and was lodged in prison.
When Angelo perused this, involuntarily he felt a sensation of extreme
regret; he decided in his mind that he would be present at his trial,
but give no evidence that would tend to criminate him, for he
sufficiently repented that he had already, as it were, pointed him out
to justice; and rather than have uttered a syllable to endanger his life
he would have rejoiced in an opportunity to preserve it.
The day of the trial at length arrived. Angelo had intended to have been
present from the commencement, but unforeseen circumstances prevented
him, and when he arrived, he learned that the trial was over, that the
prisoner was coming out of court, and that he was condemned to suffer
death. Powerfully affected, yet anxious to obtain at least a glimpse of
his countenance, he pressed eagerly through the crowd, and by his
exertions approached sufficiently near to have a view of the person of
the prisoner.--But oh, what language can describe his horror!--his
despair!--his madness at that view!---- it was _his son_ that he beheld!
Uttering a loud frantic cry, he rushed with the strength of a maniac
back through the crowd.--Could a whole life of future happiness, (if
such were possible) blot out a moment like the present! The wretched
Angelo felt it could not:--his resolution was taken;--he gained his
house in a state of frenzy; and securing himself in his apartment took
his pistols from his cabinet, loaded and placed them on the table before
him;--then gazing eagerly upon them, he seized one, and pointed it to
his burning temple!--another instant, and death would bury in internal
oblivion his shame, his anguish, his remorse! Suddenly a thought darted
through his brain; his hand, nerved with the wild fury of despair,
trembled and relaxed its hold of the instrument of death; he withdrew it
from his head, paused, placed it on the table again, and exclaimed--“No,
I must not quit the world thus; I must first perform some sacred duties,
and ere I sleep for ever, _must_ behold my boy!”
For a moment he seated himself to collect his tumultuous thoughts, then
starting up, added, “it shall be so.”--Quitting his apartment he
endeavoured to appear calm, to betray no extraordinary emotion to
superficial observers; he succeeded, and seemed sufficiently composed to
escape remark.
His first step was to make his will, which he caused to be regularly
attested, speaking of it merely as a matter of propriety, and appearing
perfectly rational and tranquil.--All he possessed he bequeathed to
Agnes, or in case of her death, (which with an inward pang he considered
might already be,) one half to Verospi, the other to the convent.
He then addressed Verospi by letter, informing him of what he had done;
and, without touching on the dreadful events which had induced this
step, (for in the midst of the most terrible degradation, even on the
verge of the grave, his pride was insurmountable,) stated simply as the
cause, his conviction that he should not long survive. In this letter he
enclosed one to Agnes, tenderly affectionate, desiring of him, if she
was restored to reason, that it might be given her, praying of her to
forgive him for having destroyed her happiness, which but for him might
have been perfected, and to endeavour to live, that his soul might not
be burthened with the additional crime of having precipitated her to an
early grave!--to remember him with tender pity in her orisons, and to
pray for the repose of his spirit.
These arrangements employed the remainder of the day, and a part of the
night; the intermediate hours ere he could behold his son, he durst not
pass in reflection. He sought to banish thought by motion, and walked
rapidly to and fro in his chamber, yet now pausing involuntarily in
fearful meditation, now starting in horror at the appalling images that
would present themselves before him. Morning at length arrived; he stole
from his house and wandered about, till the period when he might be
permitted to enter the prison, which contained (distracting thought!)
his only son! The hour at length arrived; he presented himself at the
gate, received admittance, and was conducted to the door of his cell. By
dint of entreaty, and the more powerful eloquence of gold, he obtained
what with half his fortune he would have purchased, the permission to
remain for a short time alone with the prisoner.
Scarce could he support his trembling frame, while the dreadful door
unlocked and grated on its hinges,--he entered;--Oh! tremendous
God!--could it indeed be?--that fondly, too fatally loved boy;--his
cherished form, still rich in youthful beauty, weighed down, degraded by
the massive emblems of the vilest guilt!--that fair countenance, round
which waved bright auburn ringlets, so often dwelt on with delight, did
he behold it in the gloom of a dungeon!--his son! his Felix! the child
of Gabrielle!--was it thus at last that they were doomed to meet?--Oh!
fatal hour! oh! miserable father! Words were denied such excruciating
anguish; it mounted almost into madness, and dashing himself upon the
flinty earth, the wild ravings of terrible despair filled the gloomy
habitation of guilt!
Felix beheld the agony of his father, at first, with a dreadful
tranquillity, even as though he knew him not; at length in faltering
accents he exclaimed, “To what purpose, oh! my father, this violent
anguish? this vain despair?--The die is cast, and I must perish!--Yet
think not that I regret existence,--it has been long oppressive to me!”
The words of Felix seemed to excite in the breast of Angelo a desperate
fortitude; he sprang from the earth, gazed upon him with a look of
frightful calmness, and cried, “Let me hear _all_, while I have yet the
power; I would know your thoughts,--why has life been long oppressive to
you?--say, by what inconceivable and dreadful fatality do I behold you
thus?”
“Oh! my father!” exclaimed the youth, bursting into tears, and throwing
himself upon the bosom of the despairing Angelo--“let us--let us not
retrace the past--but exchange mutual forgiveness.”
Angelo wept not, the muscles of his countenance were convulsed with
mighty horror, and alone betrayed the tremendous workings of his
soul.--“Felix,” said he at length, in a deep hollow voice, “I implore
you to answer me.”
“Oh spare me! spare me;” cried the youth, “my father, spare yourself!”
“No,” answered Angelo, with a half suppressed groan, “I will not spare
myself!--say then, am I, am I the cause?--nay then, I command,--I
entreat--.”
“Wherefore, wherefore,” cried Felix clasping his hands in agony, “would
you drag from me----”
“Proceed, proceed!” wildly interrupted Angelo.
“Oh! why was I taught to hate the best of mothers?” then passionately
exclaimed the youth, “to contemn her virtuous maxims, to repay with
abhorrence, and scorn, her instructions? Why did I behold my father
prefer to her the most abandoned of her sex?--That fatal connexion was
the origin of all my crimes, it perfected my ruin!--She, destroying
demon, gloried to sow in my mind the seeds of early vice, taught me that
I owed to my parents nor filial love nor gratitude, and alienated my
affections from them to herself.--She was my mother, my adviser, my
friend, she had over me implicit sway;--did I not fly with her from the
house of my father? did I not participate---- must I go on?--you will
not bid me be silent,--yet I cannot, no I cannot retrace my numberless
progressive crimes, each, each more dreadful than the other---- at
length I--I--”
“Enough! enough!” cried Angelo in gloomy voice, “I can imagine the
gradations from crime to crime--I have traced you before--I learned, but
no matter.”--He paused;--from the look of tranquil horror, his
countenance assumed an expression of the wildest frenzy, and he
exclaimed, seizing the arm of his son, “Unhappy boy!--kneel, kneel, and
curse your father!--it is not enough that his vices have been the origin
of all your crimes!--but he has placed you here! _he_ delivered you into
the hands of your pursuers!” With a terrible smile as he concluded, he
gazed upon his son, for his brain was whirling with madness and despair.
“What do I hear?” cried the youth--“my father my accuser---- _you_!”
“Yes, yes, I!--you attacked me--it was fated that your _father_ should
become your murderer;--I experienced certain sensations for you
indeed,--but I disregarded them, for I am a monster!”
Intense horror had taken possession of the youth, his blood froze in his
veins, his limbs shook!--Sinking on his knees he raised his eyes to
heaven, with an expression so like his sainted mother’s that the heart
of Angelo bounded with agony--“Oh, God!” he cried, “merciful God, I
thank thee that at thy bar, where speedily I must appear, I have not to
answer for the _murder_ of my _father_!” Then in the deep gratitude and
humility of his penitent soul, he kissed the ground, and approaching his
father, seized his hand, and bedewed it with his tears.
“But thy father,” cried Angelo in torture inexpressible, “will have
_thy_ blood upon his head!” and throwing himself on his knees beside his
son, “Felix,” he exclaimed, “canst thou embrace thy murderer?”
“Oh! my father,” cried Felix, endeavouring to strain him to his breast,
“my dear father, may you live long and happy: yet ere you leave your
guilty son, assure him of your forgiveness for having brought on you
indelible dishonour--for weighing you to the grave in shame and sorrow!”
“Cease, cease, my boy,” exclaimed the frantic father, “this is too
much.--Oh God! my heart, my brain, will burst!--have I no tears?--no! I
cannot weep, my heart has turned to stone! Felix, did you wish me
life?--no, no, believe it not,--the father who has caused your ruin
will not survive you;--you asked my forgiveness--I ask _yours_--on my
knees I beseech it,--deny it not to my parting soul!”
“Bless, bless my father! God restore peace to his heart, banish his
despair, and enable him to forget the son, the disgrace and curse of his
existence.”
Angelo drew his son to his bosom--they were locked in each other’s arms,
they remained so for some minutes.--In that awful embrace, in the pangs
which mutually tore their heart-strings, Death, stripped off its
horrors, stood forth the succouring angel, the deliverer from horrors,
which future happiest life could never cancel, for it could not put the
blot of oblivion on the present!--The souls of both tremblingly aspired
to the throne of mercy, hoping that the dreadful punishment awarded in
this world might save from eternal condemnation in the next!
At this moment, when the past seemed but a crowd of gloomy visions, when
the present receded from their view, and the dread _future_ alone
engaged their hearts and thoughts,--the door opened, and awakened them
from their profound abstraction from earth.--Both arose, for no vulgar
witness might profane the sacredness of their sensations--but the blest
illusion was at an end, and they were recalled to earth.
Angelo, incapable of conversing with, or even gazing on his son, at this
awful juncture, in the presence of another human being, hastily cried,
“_Farewell_, my Felix,” and moved towards the door.
“Oh, my father!” cried the youth dissolving again into mortal weakness,
“shall I no more behold you?”
Angelo drew near his son, took his hand, pressed it convulsively to his
heart, and murmured--“_Hope_, my boy!--oh, endeavour to hope that we may
meet hereafter!”--then added--“arm thyself with courage, give thy soul
to God,--implore him to receive it, and pardon the errors of thy
youth.---- _My_ peace will be more difficult to make!--One last
embrace--now then farewell--_for ever_!”
Their arms entwined, their throbbing hearts met, and beat in tremendous
agony against each other’s bosoms--this embrace had more of _earth_ in
it--the other more of _heaven_! The tears of Felix covered his
cheeks--sighs and groans rent his breast, but still Angelo wept not--his
brain and heart were bursting,--he tore himself from the arms of his
son, and rushed from the dungeon.
Reaching home, he retired instantly to his apartment and secured the
door. Once more he placed his pistols on the table, and seated himself
before them.--His wish was, to end his existence at the same moment that
his son should resign his, that the souls of both might take their
flight together.
Fixed, determined, he no longer shrunk from himself--he desired to feel
agony, remorse; the past rose to his view, he beheld himself such as he
really was--the source and cause of the most terrible events.--All had
sprung from the impetuosity of his passions, unchecked by the voice of
reason or of virtue; he beheld not only himself the guilty author of
misfortunes and crimes, but the cause of them in others.--What dreadful
havoc had he caused!--His various victims, (a mournful group) passed in
sad guise before him. The high soul’d noble Montmorency, the fair
accusing form of Gabrielle, who pointing to heaven, while sternly she
gazed upon him, seemed to exclaim, “There, there must thou answer all!”
then fading remote in shadowy distance, she vanished from his view! His
daughter, the gentle devoted Agnes, punished by _his_ hand to save his
pride, for those errors which _he_ had caused!--His son! appalling
image!--he beheld him expire!--his lifeless corpse was before him! those
fair features _once_ so lovely!--oh! the thought was madness! and he
shrieked aloud.--The origin of all his crimes, by an awful dispensation
of offended Omnipotence, he was doomed to become likewise the instrument
of his destruction!--
The wretched libertine, awakened to a sense of his manifold guilt,
shrunk enhorrored from the picture traced in the burning characters of
despair! “Oh! no, no,” he cried, as his eyes glared on the instruments
of death,--“there is not, there can be no pardon for _me_! then let me
at once set free my tortured soul, lest by appearing at the bar of
Heaven in the same moment with that of my son, I may rob him of divine
mercy for holding communion with mine!”
He cast himself prostrate on the earth, he longed, yet _feared_ to die,
for his soul was tumult and despair, and to die without _hope_!--is
nature equal to the thought? He endeavoured then to acquire fortitude,
to arm himself with hope, and to abide by his first intended purpose.
Miserable were the hours endured by the tortured victim of a too late
remorse, till morning dawned; his eyes, which in the terrors of his
haunted imagination he had covered with his hands, now opened and
discerned the coming light. Though horror still raged within, something
like a re-animating ray shot through his breast, but so instantly
accompanied by a poignant pang, that scarce could the mind identify the
transition from one to the other.--Ah! who is there so wretched, so
despairing, or so guilty, that, bent on destruction, yet delaying it,
shall not for an instant think of life; more deeply regretting the
terrible cause which makes death the only refuge from insupportable woe!
He thought of the happiness that might have been his in the fond
chearing circle of domestic felicity; it gave an additional throb of
agony to the present moment, by the hopeless contrast that it offered.
“Oh God!” he cried, “have I then arrived so far!--the hour of release
draws near.”--He rose and drew toward the window, his hands uplifted,
and his eyes gazing on the moving clouds that gave birth to ideas in his
mind, which human reason could not pursue, and the soul trembled, and
feared to identify!
The beams of the sun now burst forth, and a stream of radiance entered
his chamber.--“Oh, glorious sun!” he exclaimed--“once again I have
beheld thee--but never shall I more--My Felix--my unhappy boy--at this
time thou canst not behold it,--but thou wilt, once again---- Oh!
horrible idea!--I cannot stay--the thought of thee at that fearful
moment would unnerve my hand!--it must be now--my soul struggles to be
free, it can no longer wait for thine!”
He rushed towards the table, where lay his pistols--he sunk on his
knees; one he held to his throbbing temple, the other he placed beside
him, lest the first should fail.--He essayed to utter a prayer, but
could not; his burning cheek crimsoned with the agonizing dread that God
could not listen to a wretch like him!--his brow was writhed, and his
eyes glanced wildly round, at the appalling thought of eternal
perdition!--His whirling brain could suggest no form of language--no
prayer for _himself_;--his lips moved convulsively, and he murmured “To
pray for thee, oh, my boy! would arm against thee the anger of God,--for
myself I dare not!”--He raised his despairing eyes to Heaven,--they
implored the mercy which he dared not ask,--his hand then gave the
fatal movement,--it was but too unerring!--the ball entered his brain,
and bathed in blood he fell lifeless to the floor.
Thus ended the career of the once gay Libertine, an awful example “_that
the sins of the father shall be visited upon the children_.” Dreadful
decree, yet intended by an all-wise Being to serve the great cause of
society, and impress upon the mind of man the crime of which he is
guilty in the subversion of a _moral duty_.
The wisdom of past ages perceived the necessity of decreeing holy
ties--subsequent ages found it wisdom to abide by the law. Marriage
became the bond of society--the strong, though imperceptible chain which
linked mankind together. From it sprang the dear and tender affinities
of husband, father, wife, mother, brother, and sister. To outrage the
sacred institution, entails misery and ruin upon unborn myriads, sinks
and loses in labyrinthian confusion every tie of consanguinity, causes
an unknown offspring to wander through the world unclaimed, and plunges
them in a vortex of misfortune and crime.
The momentous subject furnishes matter for the lessons of the moralist,
the contemplation of the sage, and the commentaries of the philosopher.
Some of the fatal consequences attendant on the disregard of a system so
glorious, rational and indispensable, it has been the object of the
preceding work, conscientiously, it is hoped not vainly to pourtray.
FINIS.
W. Flint, Printer,
Old Bailey.
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