What a contrast did the large, airy, pleasant nursery room of Mrs.
Brahan present, to the narrow cell I had so lately quitted! I
accompanied her there after dinner, while Richard, anxious to follow up
the impression he had made, returned to the prison, taking with him his
mother's Bible. I had hardly thought of the communication which he said
he wished to make, till I saw Richard depart. Then it recurred to me;
but it did not seem possible that it could interest or affect me much,
though it might my brother.
I have not spoken of Mrs. Brahan's children, because I have had so much
to say of others; but she had children, and very lovely ones, who were
the crowning blessings of her home. Her eldest were at school, but there
were three inmates of the nursery, from five to ten years of age,
adorned with the sweetest charms of childhood, brightness, purity, and
bloom. She called them playfully her three little graces; and I never
admired her so much, as when she made herself a child in their midst,
and participated in their innocent amusements. After supper they were
brought into the parlor to be companions of their father one hour, which
he devoted exclusively to their instruction and recreation; but after
dinner Mrs. Brahan took the place of the nurse, or rather governess, and
I felt it a privilege to be with her, it made me feel so entirely at
home, and the presence of childhood freshened and enlivened the spirits.
It seemed as if fairy fingers were scattering rose-leaves on my heart.
Was it possible that these young, innocent creatures would ever become
hardened by worldliness, polluted by sin, or saddened by sorrow? And yet
the doomed dweller of the Tombs had said that morning, "that he was once
a praying child at his mother's knee!" How would that mother have felt,
if, when his innocent hands were folded on her lap and his cherub lips
repeated words which perhaps angels interpreted, she could have looked
into future years, and beheld the condemned and blasted being in whose
withering veins her own lifeblood was flowing?
While I was reclining on the children's bed and the youngest little girl
was playing with my ringlets, as short and childish as her own, I was
told a gentleman was in the parlor, who inquired for me.
"Cannot I excuse myself?" I asked of Mrs. Brahan. "I did not wish any
one to know that I was in the city. I did not wish to meet any of my
former acquaintances."
Then it suddenly flashed into my mind, that it might be some one who
brought tidings of Ernest, some one who had met the "Star of the East,"
on his homeward voyage. There was nothing wild in the idea, and when I
mentioned it to Mrs. Brahan, she said it was possible, and that I had
better go down. Supposing it was a messenger of evil! I felt as if I had
borne all I could bear, and live. Then all at once I thought of the
stranger whom I had seen in the vestibule of the prison, and I was sure
it was he. But who was he, and why had he come? I was obliged to stop at
the door, to command my agitation, so nervous had I been made by the
shock from which I had not yet recovered. My cheeks burned, but my hands
were cold as ice.
Yes, it was he. The moment I opened the door, I recognized him, the
stately stranger of the Tombs. He was standing in front of the beautiful
painting of the fortress, and his face was from me. But he turned at my
entrance, and advanced eagerly to meet me. He was excessively pale, and
varying emotions swept over his countenance, like clouds drifted by a
stormy wind. Taking both my hands in his, he drew me towards him, with a
movement I had no power to resist, and looked in my face with eyes in
which every passion of the soul seemed concentrated, but in which joy
like a sun-ray shone triumphant.
Even before he opened his arms and clasped me to his bosom, I felt an
invisible power drawing me to his heart, and telling me I had a right to
be there.
"Gabriella! child of my Rosalie! my own lost darling!" he exclaimed, in
broken accents, folding me closer and closer in his arms, as if fearing
I would vanish from his embrace. "Gracious God! I thank thee,--Heavenly
Father! I bless thee for this hour. After long years of mourning, and
bereavement, and loneliness, to find a treasure so dear, to feel a joy
so holy! Oh, my God, what shall I render unto Thee for all thy
benefits!"
Then he bowed his head on my neck, and I felt hot tears gushing from his
eyes, and sobs, like the deep, passionate sobs of childhood, convulsing
his breast.
Yes, he _was_ my father. I knew it,--I felt it, as if the voice of God
had spoken from the clouds of heaven to proclaim it. He was my father,
the beloved of my angelic mother, and he had never wronged her, never.
He had not been the deceiver, but the deceived. Without a word of
explanation I believed this, for it was written as if in sunbeams on his
noble brow. The dreams of my childhood were all embodied in him; and
overpowered by reverence, love, gratitude, and joy, I slid from his
arms, and on bended knees and with clasped hands, looked up in his face
and repeated again and again the sacred name of "Father."
It is impossible to describe such bewildering, such intense emotions.
Seldom, except in dreams, are they felt, when the spirit seems free from
the fetters of earth. Even when I found myself sitting by his side,
still encircled in his arms and leaning on his heart, I could scarcely
convince myself that the scene was real.
"And Richard, my brother!" I cried, beginning to feel bewildered at the
mysteries that were to be unravelled; "joy is not perfect till he shares
it with me."
"Will it make you unhappy, my darling Gabriella, to know that Richard is
your cousin, instead of your brother?"
I pressed my hands on my forehead, for it ached with the quick,
lightning-like thoughts that flashed through my brain.
"And he, the inmate of yon dismal cell?" I exclaimed, anticipating, as
if by intuition, the reply,--
"Is my brother, my twin brother, whom in youth our mother could not
distinguish from myself. This fatal resemblance has caused all my woe.
Therésa la Fontaine was _his_ wife and Richard is _his_ son, not mine."
How simple, how natural, all this seemed! Why had not my mother dreamed
of the possibility of such a thing! Knowing the existence of this
brother, why had she not at once found in him the solution of the dark
problem, which was the enigma as well as anguish of her life?
"My unhappy brother!" said he, while a dark shade rested on his brow;
"little did I think, when I visited his dungeon this morning, of the
revelation he would make! I have been an exile and a wanderer many
years, or I might perhaps have learned sooner what a blessing Heaven has
been guarding for my sad and lonely heart. I saw you as you passed out
of the prison, and your resemblance to my beloved Rosalie struck me, as
an electric shock."
"And yours to him whom I believed my father, had the same effect on me.
How strange it was, that then I felt as if I would give worlds to call
_you_ father, instead of the wretched being I had just quitted."
"Then you are willing to acknowledge me, my beloved, my lovely
daughter," said he, pressing a father's kiss on my forehead, from which
his hand fondly put back the clustering locks. "My daughter! let me
repeat the name. My daughter! how sweet, how holy it sounds! Had _she_
lived, or had she only known before she died, the constancy and purity
of my love; but forgive me, thou Almighty chastener of man's erring
heart! I dare not murmur. She knows all this now. She has given me her
divine forgiveness."
"She left it with me, father, to give you; not only her forgiveness, but
her undying love, and her dying blessing."
Withdrawing the arm with which he still embraced me, he bowed his face
on his hands, and I hardly dared to breathe lest I should disturb the
sacredness of his emotions. "She knows all this now." My heart repeated
the words. Methought the wings of her spirit were hovering round
us,--her husband and her child,--whom the hand of God had brought
together after years of alienation and sorrow. And other thoughts
pressed down upon me. By and by, when we were all united in that world,
where we should know even as we are known, Ernest would read my heart,
by the light of eternity, and then he would know how I loved him. There
would be no more suspicion, or jealousy, or estrangement, but perfect
love and perfect joy would absorb the memory of sorrow.
"And you are married, my Gabriella?" were the first words my father
said, when he again turned towards me. "How difficult to realize; and
you looking so very young. Young as you really are, you cheat the eye of
several years of youth!"
"I was very ill, and when I woke to consciousness, I found myself shorn
of the glory of womanhood,--my long hair."
"You are so like my Rosalie. Your face, your eyes, your smile; and I
feel that you have her pure and loving heart. Heaven preserve it from
the blight that fell on hers!"
The smile faded from my lip, and a quick sigh that I could not repress
saddened its expression. The eyes of my father were bent anxiously on
me.
"I long to see the husband of my child," said he. "Is he not with you?"
"No, my father, he is far away. Do not speak of him now, I can only
think of you."
"If he is faithless to a charge so dear," exclaimed St. James, with a
kindling glance.
"Nay, father; but I have so much to tell, so much to hear, my brain is
dizzy with the thought. You shall have all my confidence, believe me you
shall; and oh, how sweet it is to think that I have a father's breast to
lean upon, a father's arms to shelter me, though the storms of life may
blow cold and dreary round me,--and such a father!--after feeling such
anguish and shame from my supposed parentage. Poor Richard! how I pity
him!"
"You love him, then? Believing him your brother, you have loved him as
such?"
"I could not love him better were he indeed my brother. He was the
friend of my childhood," and a crimson hue stole over my face at the
remembrance of a love more passionate than a brother's. "He is gifted
with every good and noble quality, every pure and generous
feeling,--friend, brother, cousin--it matters not which--he will ever be
the same to me."
Then I spoke of Mrs. Linwood, my adopted mother,--of my incalculable
obligations, my unutterable gratitude, love, and admiration,--of the
lovely Edith and her sisterly affection, and I told him how I longed
that he should see them, and that _they_ should know that I had a
father, whom I was proud to acknowledge, instead of one who reflected
disgrace even on them.
"Oh! I have so much to tell, so much to hear," I again repeated. "I know
not when or where we shall begin. It is so bewildering, so strange, so
like a dream. I fear to let go your hand lest you vanish from my sight
and I lose you forever."
"Ah, my child, you cannot feel as I do. You have enshrined other images
in your heart, but mine is a lonely temple, into which you come as a
divinity to be worshipped, as well as a daughter to be loved. I did not
expect such implicit faith, such undoubting confidence. I feared you
would shrink from a stranger, and require proofs of the truth of his
assertions. I dared not hope for a greeting so tender, a trust so
spontaneous."
"Oh! I should as soon doubt that God was my Father in heaven, as you my
father on earth. I _know_ it, I do not _believe_ it."
I think my feelings must have been something like a blind person's on
first emerging from the darkness that has wrapped him from his birth. He
does not ask, when the sunbeams fall on his unclouded vision, _if it be
light_. He knows it is, because it fills his new-born capacities for
sight,--he knows it is, by the shadows that roll from before it. I knew
it was my father, because he met all the wants of my yearning filial
nature, because I felt him worthy of honor, admiration, reverence, and
love.
I know not how long I had been with him, when Mr. Brahan entered; and
though it had been seventeen years since he had seen him, he immediately
recognized the artist he had so much admired.
"I have found a daughter, sir," said St. James, grasping his hand with
fervor. He could not add another word, and no other was necessary.
"I told her so," cried Mr. Brahan, after expressing the warmest
congratulations; "I told her husband so. I knew the wretch who assumes
your name was an impostor, though he wonderfully resembles yourself."
"He has a right to the name he bears," answered my father, and his
countenance clouded as it always did when he alluded to his brother. "We
are twin brothers, and our extraordinary resemblance in youth and early
manhood caused mistakes as numerous as those recorded in the Comedy of
Errors, and laid the foundation of a tragedy seldom found in the
experience of life."
While they were conversing, I stole from the room and ran up stairs to
tell Mrs. Brahan the wondrous tidings. Her sympathy was as heart-felt as
I expected,--her surprise less. She never could believe that man my
father. Mr. Brahan always said he was an impostor, only he had no means
to prove it.
"How beautiful!" she said, her eyes glistening with sympathetic emotion,
"that he should find you here, in his own wedded home,--the place of
your birth,--the spot sanctified by the holiest memories of love. Has
not your filial mission been blest? Has not Providence led you by a way
you little dreamed of? My dear Gabriella, you must not indulge another
sad misgiving or gloomy fear. Indeed you must not."
"I know I ought not; but come and see my father."
"What is he like?" she asked, with a smile.
"Like the dream of my childhood, when I imagined him one of the sons of
God, such as once came down to earth."
"Romantic child!" she exclaimed; but when she saw my father, I read
admiration as well as respect in her speaking eye, and I was satisfied
with the impression he had made.
Richard came soon after informed by his father of all I could tell him
and a great deal more, which he subsequently related to me. I think he
was happier to know that he was cousin, than when he believed himself my
brother. The transition from a lover to a brother was too painful. He
could not divest himself of the idea of guilt, which, however
involuntary, made him shudder in remembrance. But a cousin! The
tenderness of natural affection and the memories of love, might unite in
a bond so near and dear, and hallow each other.
In the joy of my emancipation from imagined disgrace, I did not forget
that the cloud still rested darkly on him,--that he still groaned under
the burden which had been lifted from my soul. He told me that he had
hope of his father's ultimate regeneration,--that he had found him much
softened,--that he wept at the sight of Therésa's Bible, and still more
when he read aloud to him the chapters which gave most consolation to
her dying hours.
The unexpected visit of his brother, from whom he had been so long
separated, and whom he supposed was dead, had stirred still deeper the
abysses of memoir and feeling.
I will now turn a little while from myself, and give a brief history of
the twin brothers, as I learned it from my father's lips, and Richard's,
who narrated to me the story of _his_ father's life as he heard it in
the dungeon of the Tombs.