The Tombs!--shall I ever forget my first visit to that dismal abode of
crime, woe, and despair?--never!
I had nerved myself for the trial, and went with the spirit of a martyr,
though with blanched cheek and faltering step, into the heart of that
frowning pile, on which I could never gaze without shuddering.
Clinging to the arm of Richard, I felt myself borne along through cold
and dreary walls, that seemed to my startled ear echoing with sighs and
groans and curses, upward through dark galleries, and passed ponderous
iron doors that reminded me of Milton's description of the gates of
hell, till the prison officer who preceded us paused before one of those
grim portals, and inserting a massy key, a heavy grating sound scraped
and lacerated my ear.
"Wait one moment," I gasped, leaning almost powerless on the shoulder of
Richard.
"I feared so," said he, passing his arm around me, his eyes expressing
the most intense sensibility. "I knew you could not bear it. Let us
return,--I was wrong to permit your coming in the first place."
"No, no,--I am able to go in now,--the shock is over,--I am quite strong
now."
And raising my head, I drew a quick, painful breath, passed through the
iron door into the narrow cell, where the gloom of eternal twilight
darkly hung.
At first I could not distinguish the objects within, for a mist was over
my sight, which deepened the shadows of the dungeon walls. But as my eye
became accustomed to the dimness, I saw a tall, emaciated figure rising
from the bed, which nearly filled the limited space which inclosed us. A
narrow aperture in the deep, massy stone, admitted all the light which
illumined us after the iron door slowly closed.
The dark, sunken eyes of the prisoner gleamed like the flash of an
expiring taper, wild and fitful, on our entering forms. He was
dreadfully altered,--I should scarcely have recognized him through the
gloomy shade of his long-neglected hair, and thick, unshorn beard.
"Father," said Richard, trying to speak in a cheerful tone, "I have
brought you a comforter. A daughter's presence must be more soothing
than a son's."
I held out my hand as Richard spoke, and he took it as if it were
marble. No tenderness softened his countenance,--he rather seemed to
recoil from me than to welcome. I noticed a great difference in his
reception of Richard. He grasped his hand, and perused his features as
if he could not withdraw his gaze.
"Are you indeed my son?" he asked, in an unsteady tone. "Do you not mock
me? Tell me once more, are you Therésa's child?"
"As surely as I believe her an angel in heaven, I am."
"Yes,--yes, you have her brow and smile; but why have you come to me
again, when I commanded you to stay away? And why have you brought this
pale girl here, when she loathes me as an incarnate fiend?"
"No,--no," I exclaimed, sinking down on the foot of the bed, in
hopelessness of spirit, "I pity, forgive, pray for you, weep for you."
"I want neither pity, forgiveness, nor prayers," he sullenly answered.
"I want nothing but freedom, and that you cannot give. Go back to your
husband, and tell him I curse him for the riches that tempted me, and
you for the jewels that betrayed. You might have given me gold instead
of diamonds, and then I would have been safe from the hell-hounds of
law. Curse on the sordid fear"--
"Stop," cried Richard, seizing the arm he had raised in imprecation, and
fixing on him an eye of stem command. "You shall not wound her ears with
such foul blasphemy. Utter another word of reproach to her, and I will
leave you for ever to the doom you merit. Is this the return you make
for her filial devotion? Betrayer of her mother, robber of her husband,
coward as well as villain, how dare you blast her with your impious
curse?"
Richard forgot at that moment he was speaking to a father, in the
intensity of his indignation and scorn. His eye burned, his lip
quivered, he looked as if he could have hurled him against the granite
walls.
St. James quailed and writhed out of his grasp. His face turned the hue
of ashes, and he staggered back like a drunken man.
"I did not mean to curse her," he cried. "I am mad half the time, and
know not what I say. Who would not be mad, cut off from communion with
their kind, in such a den as this, with fiends whispering, and devils
tempting, and know that it is not for a day, a week, a month, nor even a
year; but for ten long years! And what will life be then, supposing I
drag out its hated length through imprisonment, and horror, and despair?
What is it now? A worn shred, a shivelled scroll, a blasted remnant of
humanity!"
He sat down again on the side of the bed, and leaning forward, bent his
face downward and buried it in his hands. Groans, that seemed to tear
his breast as they forced their passage, burst spasmodically from his
lips. Oh! if that travailing soul, travailing in sin and sorrow, would
cast itself on the bosom of Divine Mercy, would prostrate itself at the
foot of the cross, till the scarlet dye of crime was washed white in a
Saviour's blood! What were ten years of imprisonment and anguish, to
eternal ages burning with the unquenchable fires of remorse!
"O father!" I cried, moved by an irresistible impulse, and approaching
him with trembling steps, "these prison walls may become the house of
God, the gate of heaven, dark and dismal as they are. The Saviour will
come and dwell with you, if you only look up to him in penitence and
faith; and he will make them blissful with his presence. He went into
the den of lions. He walked through the fiery furnace. He can rend these
iron doors and give you the glorious liberty of the children of God. If
I could only speak as I feel, if I only knew how to convince and
persuade;--but alas! my tongue is weak, my words are cold. Richard will
you not help me?"
"If he will not listen to you, Gabriella, he would not be persuaded
though an angel spoke."
"Why do you care about my soul?" asked the prisoner, lifting his head
from his knees, and rolling his bloodshot eyes upon me.
"Because you are my father," I answered,--overcoming my trepidation, and
speaking with fervor and energy,--"because my mother prayed for you, and
my Saviour died for you."
"Your mother!" he exclaimed; "who was she, that she should pray for me?"
"My mother!" I repeated, fearing his mind was becoming unsettled; "if
you have forgotten her, I do not wish to recall her."
"I remember now,--her name was Rosalie," he said, and a strange
expression passed over his countenance. "I was thinking of my poor
Therésa."
He looked at Richard as he spoke, and something like parental tenderness
softened his features. Degraded as he was, unworthy as it seemed he must
ever have been of woman's love, I could not help a pang of exquisite
pain at the thought of my mother's being forgotten, while Therésa was
remembered with apparent tenderness. When I met him in the Park, he
expressed exceeding love for me for her sake,--he spoke of her as the
beloved of his youth, as the being whose loss had driven him to
desperation and made him the wretch and outcast he was. And now, no
chord of remembrance vibrated at her name, no ray of fondness for her
child played upon the sacrifice I was offering. It was a sordid
deception then,--his pretended tenderness,--to gain access to my
husband's gold; and I turned, heart-sick and loathing away. As I did so,
I caught a glimpse of a book that looked like the Bible on a little
table, between the bed and the wall. With an involuntary motion I
reached forward and opened it.
"I am so glad," I cried, looking at Richard. "I wanted to bring one; but
I thought I would ask permission."
"Yes," exclaimed St. James, with a ghastly smile, "we all have Bibles, I
believe. Like the priest's blessing, they cost nothing."
"But you read it, father!" said Richard, anxiously. "You cannot fail to
find light and comfort in it. You cannot be altogether lonely with such
a companion."
"What is the use of reading what one cannot understand?" cried he, in a
gloomy tone. "Your mother was a Catholic. She did not read the Bible,
and if there is a heaven above, it was made for such as she."
"My mother _did_ read her Bible," answered Richard, with solemnity. "She
taught me to read it, making a table of her knees, while her hands
toiled for our subsistence. It was a lamp to her path, a balm to her
sorrows. She lived according to its precepts. She died, believing in its
promises."
The glistening eyes of Richard seemed to magnetize his father, so
earnest, so steadfast was his gaze.
"Have you _her_ Bible?" he asked, in a husky voice.
"I have; it was her dying gift."
"Bring it, and read to me the chapters she loved best. Perhaps--who
knows? Great God! I was once a praying child at my mother's knee."
Richard grasped his father's hand with a strong emotion,
"I will bring it, father. We will read it together, and her spirit will
breathe into our hearts. The pages are marked by her pencil, blistered
by her tears."
"Yes, bring it!" he repeated. "Who knows? Just heaven!--who knows?"
Who, indeed, did know what influence that book, embalmed in such sacred
memories, might have on the sinner's blasted heart? The fierceness and
sullenness that had repelled and terrified me on our first entrance had
passed away, and sensibility roused from an awful paralysis, started at
the ruins it beheld. There was hope, since he could feel. Richard's
filial mission might not be in vain. But _mine_ was. I realized this
before I left the cell, and resolved to yield to him the task which I
had hoped to share. I could not help feeling grieved and disappointed,
not so much on my own account, as for the indifference manifested to my
mother's memory,--that mother who had loved him, even to her dying hour.
My heart hardened against him; but when I rose to go, and looked round
on the narrow and dismal tomb in which he was inclosed, and then on his
hollow cheek and wasted frame, and thought in all human probability
those walls would prove his grave, it melted with the tenderest
compassion.
"Is there any thing I can do for your comfort?" I asked, trying in vain
to keep back the rushing tears. "Can I send you any thing to do you
good? If you wish to see me again, tell Richard, and I will come; but I
do not wish to be in the way. He, I see, can do every thing I could do,
and far more. I thought a daughter could draw so near a father's heart!"
I stopped, choked with emotion which seemed contagious, for Richard
turned aside and took up his handkerchief, which had dropped upon the
bed. St. James was agitated. He gave the hand which I extended a
spasmodic pressure, and looked from me to Richard, and then back again,
with a peculiar, hesitating expression.
"Forgive me," said he, in a gentler accent than I had yet heard him use,
"my harsh, fierce words; as I told you, it was a demon's utterance, not
mine. You would have saved me, I know you would. I made you unhappy, and
plunged into perdition myself. No, you had better not come again. You
are too lovely, too tender for this grim place. My boy will come; and
you, you, my child, may pray for me, if you do not think it mockery to
ask God to pardon a wretch like me."
I looked in his face, inexpressibly affected by the unexpected
gentleness of his words and manner. Surely the spirit of God was
beginning to move over the stagnant waters of sin and despair. I was
about to leave him,--the lonely,--the doomed. I, too, was lonely and
doomed.
"Father!" I cried, and with an impulse of pity and anguish I threw my
arms round him and wept as if my heart was breaking; "I would willingly
wear out my life in prayer for you, but O, pray for yourself. One prayer
from your heart would be worth ten thousand of mine."
I thought not of the haggard form I was embracing; I thought of the
immortal soul that inhabited it; and it seemed a sacred ruin. He clasped
me convulsively to him one moment, then suddenly withdrawing his arms,
he pushed me towards Richard,--not harshly, but as if bidding him take
care of me; and throwing himself on the bed, he turned his face
downward, so that his long black hair covered it from sight.
"Let us go," said Richard, in a low voice; "we had better leave him
now."
As we were passing very softly out of the cell, he raised his head
partially, and calling to Richard, said,--
"Come back, my son, to-morrow. I have something to tell you. I ought to
do it now, while you are both here, but to-morrow will do; and don't
forget your mother's Bible."
Again we traversed the stone galleries, the dismal stairs, and our
footsteps left behind us a cold, sepulchral sound. Neither of us spoke,
for a kind of funeral silence solemnized our hearts. I looked at one of
the figures that were gliding along the upper galleries, though there
were many of them,--prisoners, who being condemned for lighter offences
than murder or forgery, were allowed to walk under the eye of a keeper.
I was conscious of passing them, but they only seemed to deepen the
gloom, like ravens and bats flapping their wings in a deserted tower.
As we came into the light of day, which, struggling through massy ridges
of darkness, burst between the grand and gloomy columns that supported
the fabric, I felt as if a great stone were rolling from my breast I
raised the veil, which I had drawn closely over my face, to inhale the
air that flowed from the world without I was coming out of darkness into
light, out of imprisonment into freedom, sunshine, and the breath of
heaven.
There were men traversing the vestibule in many directions; and Richard
hurried me on, that I might escape the gaze of curiosity or the stare of
impertinence. Against one of the pillars which we passed, a gentleman
was standing, whose figure was so striking as to attract my abstracted
eye. I had seen him before. I knew him instantaneously, though I had
only had a passing glimpse of him the morning we left the Falls. It was
the gentleman who had accosted Julian, and who had stamped himself so
indelibly on my memory. And now, as I came nearer, I was struck by a
resemblance in his air and features to our unhappy father. It is true
there was the kind of difference there is between a fallen spirit and an
angel of light; for the expression of the stranger's face was noble and
dignified, as if conscious that he still wore undefaced the image of his
Maker. He lifted his hat as we passed, with that graceful courtesy which
marks the gentleman, and I again noticed that the dark waves of his hair
were mingled with snow. It reminded me of those wreaths of frost I had
seen hanging from the evergreens of Grandison Place.
The singularity of the place, the earnestness of his gaze, and the
extraordinary attraction I felt towards him, brought the warm, bright
color to my cheeks, and I instinctively dropped the veil which I had
raised a moment before. As we entered the carriage, which had been kept
in waiting, the horses, high-spirited and impatient, threatened to break
loose from the driver's control,--when the stranger, coming rapidly
forward, stood at their heads till their transient rebellion was over.
It was but an instant; for as Richard leaned from the carriage window to
thank him, the horses dashed forward, and I only caught one more glimpse
of his fine, though pensive features.
"Richard, did you not perceive a resemblance to our father in this
gentleman, noble and distinguished as he appears? I was struck with it
at the first glance."
"Yes, there is a likeness; but not greater than we very often see
strangers bearing to each other. My father must once have been a fine
looking man, though now so sad a wreck. A life of sinful indulgence,
followed by remorse and retribution, leaves terrible scars on the face
as well as the soul."
"But how strange it is, that we are sometimes so drawn towards
strangers, as by a loadstone's power! I saw this gentleman once before,
at the Falls of Niagara, and I felt the same sudden attraction that I do
now. I may never see him again. It is not probable that I ever shall;
but it will be impossible for me to forget him. I feel as if he must
have some influence on my destiny; and such a confidence in his noble
qualities, that if I were in danger I would appeal to him for
protection, and in sorrow, for sympathy and consolation. You smile,
Richard. I dare say it all sounds foolish to you, but it is even so."
"Not foolish, but romantic, my own darling sister. I like such
sentiments. I like any thing better than the stereotyped thoughts of the
world. You have a right to be romantic, Gabriella, for your life has
been one of strange and thrilling interest."
"Yes; strange indeed!" I answered, while my soul rolled back on the
billows of the past, wondering at the storms that heaved them so high,
when life to many seemed smooth as a sea of glass. Then I thought how
sweet the haven of eternal repose must be to the wave-worn mariner; how
much sweeter to one who had had a tempestuous voyage, than one who had
been floating on a tranquil current; and the closing verse of an old
hymn came melodiously to my recollection:--
"There will I bathe my weary soul
In seas of endless rest,
And not a wave of trouble roll
Across my peaceful breast."