A thundering rap at the door startled my meditations. I knew there was
but one pair of knuckles in the house capable of beating such a tattoo,
and I recoiled from admitting such a boisterous guest.
"Gabriella, Gabriella!" rung a voice through the passage. "Are you
asleep? Are you dead? Open the door, pray, or I shall kill myself
squeezing in through the key-hole."
With a deep sigh of vexation, I opened the door, and she sprang in with
the momentum of a ball hurled by a bat.
"My dear creature!" she exclaimed, catching me round the waist and
turning me to the light, "what _have_ you been doing? where _have_ you
been staying? Ill!--tired!--it is all a sham. He need not try to impose
on me such a story as that. I never saw you look so brilliantly well.
Your cheeks and lips are red like the damask rose, and your eyes,--I
never saw such eyes before. Come here and look in the glass. Ill!--ha,
ha!"
"I have been ill," I answered, shrinking from her reckless hand, "and I
was very tired; I feel better now."
"Yes, I should think you did. You rested long enough by the way, Heaven
knows; we saw you climbing the hill at sunset, and the lamps were
lighted before you came in. I was going after you, but Mrs. Linwood
would not let me. Ah! you have animated the statue, thou modern
Pygmaliona. You have turned back into flesh this enchanted man of stone.
Tell it in Gath, publish it in Askelon; but the daughters of fashion
will mourn, the tribes of the neglected will envy."
"I cannot match you in brilliant speeches, Miss Melville."
"Call me Miss Melville again, if you dare. Call me Madge, or Meg; but as
sure as you mount the stilts of ceremony, I will whisk you off at the
risk of breaking your neck. Hark! there is the supper bell. Come, just
as you are. You never looked so charming. That wild flow of the hair is
perfectly bewitching. I don't wonder Mr. Invincible has grounded his
weapons, not I. If I were a young man,--ha, ha!"
"I sometimes fear you are," I cried. At this remark she burst into such
a wild fit of laughter, I thought she never would cease. It drowned the
ringing of the bell, and still kept gushing over afresh.
"Ask Mrs. Linwood to excuse me from supper," said I; "I do not wish any,
indeed I do not."
Well, I am not one of the air plants; I must have something more
substantial than sentiment, or I should pine with green and yellow
hunger, not melancholy. I never cried but once, that I recollect, and
that was when a favorite black cat of mine was killed,--maliciously,
villanously killed, by an old maid, just because she devoured her
favorite Canary. No, with the daughter of Jephthah, I exclaimed,--
'Let my memory still be thy pride,
And forget not I smiled as I died.'
Shutting, or rather slamming the door, she bounded down the stairs with
the steps of the chamois.
I had not finished my mother's history, but I had passed the _breakers_.
There could be nothing beyond so fearful and wrecking. The remainder was
brief, and written at times with a weak and failing hand.
* * * * *
"How long I remained in that deadly swoon," continued the manuscript, "I
know not. When I recovered, I was lying on my bed, with Peggy standing
on one side and a physician on the other. As soon as I looked up, Peggy
burst into tears.
"'Thank God!' she sobbed, 'I thought she was dead.'
"'Hush!' said the doctor; 'let her be kept perfectly quiet. Give her
this composing draught, and let no one be admitted to her chamber,--not
even her child.'
"Child! it all came back to me. Where was she, that dreadful woman?
Starting up in bed, I looked wildly round the room for the haunting
phantom,--she was not a reality,--I must have had a terrible dream.
"'Yes!' said the doctor, answering the expression of my countenance,
'you have had a shocking nightmare. Drink this, and you will awake
refreshed.'
"Yielding passively, I drank the colorless fluid he offered me, and
sinking back on my pillow passed into a deep and tranquil sleep. When I
awoke, the silence and darkness of night brooded around me. My mind now
was clear as crystal, and every image appeared with startling
distinctness. I lay still and calm, revolving what course to pursue; and
as I lay and revolved, doubts of the truth of her story grew stronger
and stronger. All my husband's love and tenderness rose in remembrance,
vindicating his aspersed honor. She had forged the tale,--she had stolen
the picture,--she was an impostor and a wretch.
"At morning light, I awakened Peggy, and demanded of her what had
occurred during my insensible state, and what had become of the strange
woman. Peggy said that the piercing shrieks of the stranger brought her
to the parlor, where I lay like a corpse on the carpet, and she kneeling
over me, ringing her hands, and uttering unintelligible words.
"'You have killed her,' cried Peggy, pushing back the stranger, and
taking me in her strong arms.
"'_Je le sais, mon Dieu, je le sais_,' exclaimed she, lifting her
clasped hands to heaven. Peggy did not understand French, but she
repeated the words awkwardly enough, yet I could interpret them.
"As they found it impossible to recall me to life, a physician was
summoned, and as soon as he came the stranger disappeared.
"'Don't think of her anymore,' said Peggy; 'don't, Mrs. St. James,--I
don't believe a word of her story,--she's crazy,--she's a lunatic, you
may be sure she is,--she looked stark mad.'
"I tried to believe this assertion, but something told me she was no
maniac. I tried to believe her an impostor,--I asserted she was,--but if
so, she transcended all the actresses in the world. I could not eat, I
could not bear you, my darling Gabriella, to be brought into my
presence. Your innocent smiles were daggers to my heart.
"But she came again, Therésa, the avenger,--she came followed by a
woman, leading by the hand a beautiful boy.
"Here was proof that needed no confirmation. Every infantine feature
bore the similitude of St. James. The eyes, the smile, his miniature
self was there. I no longer doubted,--no longer hesitated.
"'Leave me,' I cried, and despair lent me calmness. 'I resign all claims
to the name, the fortune, and the affections of him who has so cruelly
wronged us. Not for worlds would I remain even one day longer in the
home he has desecrated by his crimes. Respect my sorrows, and leave me.
You may return to-morrow.'
"'_Oh, juste ciel!_' she exclaimed. '_Je suis trés malheureuse._'
"Snatching her child in her arms, and raising it as high as her strength
could lift it, she called upon God to witness that it was only for his
sake she had asserted her legal rights; that, having lost the heart of
her husband, all she wished was to die. Then, sinking on her knees
before me, she entreated me to forgive her the wretchedness she had
caused.
"'_I_ forgive _you_?' I cried. 'Alas! it is I should supplicate your
forgiveness. I do ask it in the humility of a broken heart. But
go--go--if you would not see me die.'
"Terrified at my ghastly countenance, Peggy commanded the nurse to take
the child from the room. Therésa followed with lingering steps, casting
back upon me a glance of pity and remorse. I never saw her again.
"'And now, Peggy,' said I, 'you are the only friend I have in the wide
world. Yet I must leave you. With my child in my arms, I am going forth,
like Hagar, into the wilderness of life. I have money enough to save me
from immediate want. Heaven will guard the future.'
"'And where will you go?' asked Peggy, passing the back of her hand over
her eyes.
"'Alas, I know not. I have no one to counsel me, no one to whom I can
turn for assistance or go for shelter. Even my Heavenly Father hideth
his face from me.'
"'Oh, Mrs. St. James!'
"'Call me not by that accursed name. Call me Rosalie. It was a dying
mother's gift, and they cannot rob me of that.'
"'Miss Rosalie, I will never quit you. There is nobody in the world I
love half as well, and if you will let me stay with you, I will wait on
you, and take care of the baby all the days of my life.'
"Then she told me how she came from New England to live with a brother,
who had since died of consumption, and how she was going back, because
she did not like to live in a great city, when the doctor got her to
come to nurse me in sickness, and how she had learned to love me so well
she could not bear the thoughts of going away from me. She told me, too,
how quiet and happy people could live in that part of the country; how
they could get along upon almost nothing at all, and be just as private
as they pleased, and nobody would pester them or make them afraid.
"She knew exactly how she came to the city, and we could go the same
way, only we would wind about a little and not go to the place where she
used to live, so that folks need ask no questions or know any thing
about us.
"With a childlike dependence, as implicit as your own, and as
instinctive, I threw myself on Peggy's strong heart and great common
sense. With equal judgment and energy, she arranged every thing for our
departure. She had the resolution and fortitude of a man, with the
tenderness and fidelity of a woman. I submitted myself entirely to her
guidance, saying, 'It was well.' But when I was alone, I clasped you in
agony to my bosom, and prostrating myself before the footstool of
Jehovah, I prayed for a bolt to strike us, mother and child together,
that we might be spared the bitter cup of humiliation and woe. One
moment I dared to think of mingling our life blood together in the grave
of the suicide; the next, with streaming eyes, I implored forgiveness
for the impious thought.
"It is needless to dwell minutely on the circumstances of our departure.
We left that beautiful mansion, once the abode of love and happiness,
now a dungeon house of despair;--we came to this lone, obscure spot,
where I resumed my father's name, and gave it to you. At first,
curiosity sought out the melancholy stranger, but Peggy's
incommunicativeness and sound judgment baffled its scrutiny. In a little
while, we were suffered to remain in the seclusion we desired. Here you
have passed from infancy to childhood, from childhood to adolescence,
unconscious that a cloud deeper than poverty and obscurity rests upon
your youth. I could not bear that my innocent child should blush for a
father's villany. I could not bear that her holy confidence in human
goodness and truth should be shattered and destroyed. But the day of
revelation must come. From the grave, whither I am hastening, my voice
shall speak; for the time may come, when a knowledge of your parentage
will be indispensable, and concealment be considered a crime.
"Should you hereafter win the love of an honorable and noble heart, (for
such are sometimes found,) every honorable and noble feeling will prompt
you to candor and truth, with regard to your personal relations. I need
not tell you this.
"And now, my darling child, I leave you one solemn dying charge. Should
it ever be your lot to meet that guilty, erring father, whose care you
have never known, whose name you have never borne, let no vindictive
memories rise against him.
"Tell him, I forgave him, as I hope to be forgiven by my Heavenly
Father, for all my sins and transgressions, and my idolatrous love of
him. Tell him, that now, as life is ebbing slowly away like the sands of
the hour-glass, and I can calmly look back upon the past, I bless him
for being the means of leading my wandering footsteps to the green
fields and still pastures of the great Shepherd of Israel. Had he never
prepared for me the bitter cup of sorrow, I had not perchance tasted the
purple juice which my Saviour trod the wine-press of God's wrath to
obtain. Had not 'lover and friend been taken from me,' I might not have
turned to the Friend of sinners; the Divine Love of mankind. Tell him
then, oh Gabriella! that I not only forgave, but blessed him with the
heart of a woman and the spirit of a Christian.
"I had a dream, a strange, wild dream last night, which I am constrained
to relate. I am not superstitious, but its echo lingers in my soul.
"I dreamed that your father was exposed to some mysterious danger, that
you alone could avert. That I saw him plunging down into an awful abyss,
lower and lower; and that he called on you, Gabriella, to save him, in a
voice that might have rent the heavens; and then they seemed to open,
and you appeared distant as a star, yet distinct and fair as an angel,
slowly descending right over the yawning chasm. You stretched out your
arms towards him, and drew him upward as if by an invisible chain. As he
rose, the dark abyss was transformed to beds of roses, whose fragrance
was so intensely sweet it waked me. It was but a dream, my Gabriella,
but it may be that God destined you to fulfil a glorious mission: to
lead your erring father back to the God he has forsaken. It may be, that
through you, an innocent and injured child, the heart sundered on earth
may be reunited in heaven.
"One more charge, my best beloved. In whatever situation of life you may
be placed, remember our boundless obligations to the faithful Peggy, and
never, never, be separated from her. Repay to her as far as possible the
long, long debt of love and devotion due from us both. She has literally
forsaken all to follow me and mine; and if there is a crown laid up in
heaven for the true, self-sacrificing heart, that crown will one day be
hers.
"The pen falls from my hand. Farewell trembles on my lips. Oh! at this
moment I feel the triumph of faith, the glory of religion.
"'Other refuge have I none;
Hangs my helpless soul on _thee_;
Leave, oh, leave me not alone,
Still support and comfort me.'
"Not me alone, O compassionate and blessed Saviour! but the dear, the
precious, the only one I leave behind. To thine exceeding love, to the
care of a mighty God, the blessed influences of the Holy Spirit, I now
commit her. 'Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is naught on
earth which I desire beside thee.'"