When the conduct of Paulina became insupportable to Angelo, which it
frequently did, he would rush from the house, and, a solitary being in
the midst of society, seek out some temporary amusement to drown the
uneasiness and dissatisfaction of his mind. Often, rather than return
home, he would wander for hours about the streets, dreading to encounter
the fierceness of Paulina’s resentment, on some frivolous pretext, or
for some alledged fault, of which he would be unconscious.
One night, that her procedure had been more than ordinarily violent and
disgusting, he had left her abruptly, and, quitting the house,
determined to remain out to a late hour, preferring any discomfort
attendant on that plan, to the misery of enduring her society, in such a
temperament of mind. When at length he gathered resolution to return,
Paulina, to his infinite joy, was not to be seen; concluding she had
retired to her apartment, he hastily sought his own, too happy to have
escaped a scene which he had anticipated with pain and apprehension. As
he entered his room, a letter on his dressing table attracted his
attention; he took it up carelessly, and with astonishment read thus:
“COUNT,
“I never loved you, and why I pretended to do so, you may at one
time or another learn;--at the time you read this I shall be far
from you, and all pursuit will be vain: among your friends I have
found one I prefer to you--at least I think so--he is richer and
more agreeable; with him I quit England, which, but for reasons
stronger than my regard for you, I had never entered. You will, no
doubt, accuse me of having deceived you; but what then, you loved
the deception, which, till now, I suffered you to fancy real: and,
in the midst of your invectives against me, remember, that for once
at least I have dealt with you sincerely.
“PAULINA MEZZOTETTO.”
This rude and illiterate scrawl overwhelmed Angelo with the deepest
indignation; and, true to his nature, no sooner did he find that the
worthless Paulina was lost to him, than she appeared before him decked
in her thousand charms. In the first heat of passionate regret, he
determined to pursue her; but suddenly he remembered, with a thrill of
real delight that superseded every other consideration, that he was now
wholly at liberty, disencumbered of one whom he had long learned to view
with other eyes than those of admiration, more humbly, more earnestly
than ever, to sue the forgiveness of the injured Gabrielle. On this idea
he dwelt with delight, that he should once more behold her, and that she
would look on him with pity and tender pardon.
Ever sudden, variable, and precipitate, he penned in the enthusiasm of
the moment, ere he retired to bed, a letter to Gabrielle, which he
resolved it should be the first act of the morning to dispatch, and with
sentiments less of regret for Paulina, than fear lest Gabrielle should
still remain inflexible, he sought repose--in tender superstition
placing the letter beneath his pillow, to anticipate in dreams its
wished reception. The following was its purport:
“The meteor that allured me from you has vanished in eternal
night--the fetters which bound me in the most disgraceful slavery
are burst asunder---- I am free for ever from a vile enchantment!
but sink to the earth, oppressed with the remembrance of my guilt.
I can regain no portion of self-esteem till Gabrielle pronounces,
‘Angelo, I forgive you!’ Oh! my heart beats with delight, with
sacred rapture (of which conscience tells me I am unworthy) at the
thought of seeing again--of embracing my smiling boy--of embracing
his injured, though adored mother.---- Yes, yes, dearest Gabrielle,
adored, let me say, for now can I never believe that my _heart_
wandered truly from you;--yet even, if so--for how short a time
did its delusion last--how transient its wanderings!--Oh, be not
then still inflexibly severe, drive me not eternally to despair for
the folly of a moment, but, like the heaven of which you partake,
be rather merciful than sternly just. In most torturing anxiety
shall I wait your answer to appear before you.--Till then I dare
not.--Ah! let me hope that your revenge is _now_ satisfied and,
that since my last, which you treated with such bitter, yet merited
disdain, that excellent heart has relented in favor of the once
loved
“ANGELO D’ALBINI.”
This letter on the following morning he eagerly dispatched;--a week, a
fortnight, a month elapsed, and no reply. Steady for once beyond the
impulse of the moment to the object he had in view, and persevering
beyond his nature, because he could not avoid perceiving there was that
which merited perseverance, he wrote again a letter more pressing, more
imploring than before; yet still no answer arrived; and, with the
deepest grief, though not wholly unmixed with an indignant feeling at
the insensibility of Gabrielle, and the immoveable contempt she evinced
towards him, he in the mortified pride of his despised humility,
resolved that he would address her no more, nor recal again to her
remembrance one whom she appeared so desirous to forget.
“Ah! too surely,” thought he, while stinging jealousy and the most
grievous regret still tore his heart at the idea--too surely Gabrielle
has bestowed her affections upon another.--“She loves without remorse,
for she considers that I have forfeited, by my conduct, all claim to
her, and even the right to molest her by a vain repentance; yet, with
some portion of her native goodness, unwilling to wound me by an avowal
of her sentiments or conduct, she preserves an entire silence, hoping it
may prove sufficient explanation to me.”
Sometimes disgusted by the inanity and unprofitableness of the
amusements in which he plunged, to banish, or at least temporarily to
dissipate the melancholy which possessed him, he would pause on the idea
of quitting England, returning to Naples, and of presenting himself,
unlooked for and unannounced, before the eyes of Gabrielle. “But
wherefore, wherefore,” he would suddenly exclaim--“perhaps unwished,
perhaps to behold her no longer willing to be mine, but bestowing on
another that love, those tender assiduities, those soothing cares which
once she bestowed undeservedly on me. No, no, never; unless her cruel
sternness first relax, guilty and infamous as I acknowledge myself to
have been, I cannot so humble myself at the feet of her who despises
me.”
Suffering thus, in some degree, the merited punishment of his conduct,
for the present we leave him, and revert to the situation of Gabrielle.
The purpose of the infamous Oriana would have been but half answered, if
Angelo, deluded but for a moment only by the arts and beauty of Paulina,
whom she well knew, beyond a certain period would be incapable of
detaining him, had then followed the impulse naturally attendant on his
restoration to reason, and returned humbled, repentant, and imploring,
to the feet of the forsaken Gabrielle. Therefore, to obviate the
possibility of such a result, it was requisite for her to gain constant
intelligence of the movements of Paulina from her own hand, that she
might be thereby prepared for those of Angelo. Thus, when Paulina
informed her, that, not only weary to disgust of Angelo, she desired to
make him weary of her, and, subsequently, of their mutual dislike for
each other, and of her determination to quit him for one more suited to
her taste, Oriana justly anticipated that he would immediately endeavour
to effect a re-union with Gabrielle, and prevail on her to forgive the
past; thus these two persons, so abhorrent to her, and at the idea of
whose happiness she sickened, might, and would be, ultimately restored
to each other, and her machinations would have no other effect than that
of cementing them in bonds still closer than before. Her mind became
racked with jealous malice and corroding fear; she put in requisition
every power of mischievous invention she possessed, determined, if
possible, to prolong for ever the period of their mutual misery.
Gabrielle had for an attendant about her person, a female who was far
more fitted to have been the attendant of an Oriana. With this female
the plotting Genoese contrived to procure acquaintance, and by gifts,
promises, and the offer of taking her into her service, if dismissed by
Gabrielle, prevailed on her to undertake, without hesitation, whatever
she required of her.
Through the means of this woman she was duly and accurately informed of
whatever concerned her mistress, even to the merest trifle; and, when
she learned from Paulina, her informant on the other side, of the effect
which her altered conduct appeared to have produced upon him, she gave
strict charge to this perfidious menial to keep vigilant watch for any
letters that might arrive, directed for Gabrielle, and bring them
instantly to her. This part of her infamous requisition was but too well
fulfilled; every letter which arrived from Angelo was readily yielded to
her by the inferior domestics, for the purpose of conveying them to
Gabrielle, which she as regularly carried to Oriana, who thus became
possessed with the knowledge of those tender and remorseful sentiments
with which Angelo was inspired, and that he cherished for the injured
Gabrielle a love stronger than ever.
Her rage and hatred increased at this discovery; bitter envy, and
burning desire of redoubled vengeance, shook her breast, and her wild
and ferocious sensations could only be temporarily allayed by the
horrible exultation which she experienced at receiving one of those
invaluable epistles which would have restored the unconscious Gabrielle
from the brink of the grave, and destroying it with an infuriate
violence and malice truly infernal.
The effects of a fine constitution, strengthened by a long residence
among the health-breathing mountains of Switzerland, triumphed, though
slowly, over the ravages of a most desperate malady; for some months
even she continued in a state fluctuating, as it were, between life and
death, an alternate increase and diminution of fever, delirium, and of
moping melancholy. At length she was pronounced to be free from danger,
though her weakness continued such, notwithstanding this declaration, as
to threaten, momentarily, that the trembling spark of life must become
extinguished. Gradually these symptoms yielded to returning strength,
and, with returning bodily strength, became renewed the strength of her
superior mind.
A short time further elapsed, and the wretched Gabrielle aroused herself
in horror from the state of calm despair into which she was sinking. She
beheld, that if some means were not speedily adopted, herself and child
must perish, literally of want; for, though she could now bear to review
the letter of Angelo, (the only one which, having arrived prematurely,
had not been intercepted by the base minion of Oriana) and consequently
knew that her drafts to any amount would be honored by his banker’s
agent, she disdained, with the noble spirit of a Montmorency, to avail
herself of the compassionate liberality of a man who, at the same time,
could so cruelly outrage her feelings;--she scorned to owe _that_ to the
dictates of his honor or humanity, which she could owe no longer to his
love.
Thus she was determined to perish, rather than be indebted to him for
the means of existence, and, when she regarded her child, and burst
into a flood of tears, her resolution did not alter, and she exclaimed,
“Yes, my boy, we will perish together; thou shalt lie on my bosom, and
die with me, for surely the crime of permitting thee to die, would be
less than that of prolonging, by unworthy means, thy existence, deprived
as thou now art of every hope and prospect of a father’s protection--we
will die together then, and thus wilt thou escape the protracted
miseries, the want, and the misfortunes, that are in store for thee.”
By degrees, however, her fine reason began to assert itself, and to
prevail over these gloomy and despairing thoughts. Her rational and
sublime piety, too, taught her, that, feeble mortal as she was, she
should not dare to take the sceptre from the hands of fate, and mark out
the fortunes of another. It taught her, too, to rely upon the supreme
wisdom, which is all competent to the protection and direction of its
creatures, and not presumptuously, because of the wanderings or errors
of a mere mortal, doubt the mercy of God, or limit his power to save, in
conjunction only with man. The child, forsaken by its natural father,
would find a superior one in heaven, and, yielding to the holy influence
of divine religion, which ever inspires hope, and soothes the soul, she
now resolved to exert her energies anew, and call into action those
powers of mind with which she was so superlatively gifted.
It was but for the finely organized mind of Gabrielle to make a
successful effort over the weakness of nature, it was but for her to
acquire fortitude enough to take a review of circumstances, to oppose
the better line of action to the worse, and to decide then, with a
spirit and judgement equalled only by the promptness of execution.
Having then acquired the firmness to pause with unshrinking eye upon her
situation, she beheld immediately all that was requisite to be
performed,--she saw that want, absolute want, must shortly approach, yet
proudly resolving to adhere to her first principle of owing nothing to
the _charity_ of Angelo, she, as a first means of retarding the advances
of the gaunt fiend, gave up her sumptuous residence, and discharged her
attendants; this was not only a plan of wisdom and necessity, but a plan
likewise to her of great though unsuspected advantage, for it proved the
ostensible means of ridding her of the perfidious snake whose treachery
had caused her to drink so deeply of the cup of misery. She then,
unaccompanied but by her child, whose tender age exceeded scarce three
years, quitted Naples so secretly, and so disguised, as to elude even
the indefatigable vigilance of Oriana.
The small sum which remained to her, after having defrayed every demand,
she flattered herself would be sufficient to bear them to England,
whither she had decided to go; and far from weakly shuddering at the
venturous attempt, “Did I not,” said she mentally, “when still younger,
and far more a stranger to the world than now I am, quit my once happy
mountains, to seek out the destroyer of my peace and innocence?--to seek
him for the sake of his child, that he might protect and cherish it,
when I, worn out with calamity and ceaseless remorse, should be no more?
And shall I now, when the dangers and the difficulties are comparatively
slight, shrink at doing less than I have already done? No; to his
children I will implore Angelo to be just; let their mother be covered
with obloquy, despised, and unpitied by the world; but let them be
saved, and she will die content.”
Amid the gloomy reflections of the unhappy Gabrielle, it was no small
consolation to her, that the young Agnes, unconscious of her mother’s
sorrows, was still happy, and protected by a tender friend. How did she
now in silent, though profound gratitude, bless the wise counsels of the
excellent Bertrand, that had said to her, “Wait, wait till experience
and the test of years shall have confirmed to you the truth, and
unvarying constancy of Angelo: wait, wait till at the foot of the altar,
unhesitating, and for ever, he shall make you his, and give himself to
you. Then, and not till then, can he become eligible as the firm
guardian and eternal protector of his daughter.”
Mean time, the deceived and ill-fated Gabrielle (who was following, from
a rare and refined principle of duty, the man whom she believed hated
and shunned her, who in more than six long months had never even written
to her a line of condolence, dictated by some little humanity, or slight
remaining interest in the fate of one he had once loved), pursued
without much danger or molestation her journey; but found, with horror,
that by the time she reached England, owing to her little acquaintance
with the usages and extortions of society, she had scarcely the means of
defraying her further procedure to London. “And when I arrive there,”
thought she, with agony, “if I do not immediately discover Angelo, how
shall I be enabled to support my child? Oh! heaven--heaven assist me;”
she fervently ejaculated, raising, almost in despair, her hands and eyes
to that heaven she supplicated, “let me but live to place in the arms of
his father, this forlorn, unprotected child, and I require no more.”
She reached London at length; but from inevitable expences, and the
chicanery practised by those whose harvest is the spoils of the
inexperienced stranger, in a state utterly destitute of the means of
procuring for her innocent Felix a morsel of food, to pacify those wants
which every moment she expected would break forth in impatient demand.
On her arm she held a small basket, in which she carried some fruit and
a little bread, a fond precaution she had all along taken for him, which
now she became desirous of reserving as long as possible, dreading lest
ultimately he should experience, at his tender age, the pangs of
hunger.
From the animated description which Angelo had frequently given her of
London, of the number and variety of its streets, and of the situation
of his own particular residence there, she felt not so infinitely
appalled at the alarming prospect before her as otherwise she might have
been, for she flattered herself that she should soon be enabled to trace
him by inquiry, and then her cares would end. Hope for a time sustained
her; nor was it till she found every inquiry vain, and her foreign
accent treated with derision by some, and contempt by others, that the
full horror of her situation stood with terrifying aspect before her.
It was the depth of winter, rainy and cold, when she entered London; it
was growing dusk, night rapidly advanced, and, a forlorn stranger, she
continued to wander about the streets, an object of vulgar curiosity to
some, of insult to others, but of pity to none.
At length the idea of attempting to procure a lodging for the night
suggested itself to her mind. Desperately bold at the horrible prospect
of passing the night in the streets, she made several attempts at houses
where her knowledge of the English language sufficiently informed her
that lodging might be procured, but in vain; she could gain no
admittance, for her apparel, though plain to the last degree, was
foreign, and though singular, too humble and too uncostly for the
well-fed, purse-proud, and mercenary wretches to whom she applied to
grant her entrance. She appeared too, a miserable, unfriended, and
desolate being, consequently an object of suspicion, and unfit to be
sheltered by the outrageously good, or coldly prudent.
Some, after a rude unfeeling examination, observed, “They never admitted
foreigners;” others objected to the equivoque of her unprotected
appearance; while others, still more inhuman, after hearing the nature
of her application, closed the door instantly, without reply. Now,
galled and agonized, even to an excess of stupor, for the height of
anguish precludes acute sensation, she seated herself, with a calm
despair, on the step of a door, and taking her child in her arms, laid
his little head upon her bosom, hoping that in sleep he might forget the
calls of hunger.
Her basket, now most dearly cherished, she placed beside her, as
desirous of not calling his attention towards it; but the watchful
Felix was not to be thus eluded; he had fasted several hours, and
unusual fatigue had sharpened his appetite; he cast his eyes upon the
well-known basket, in which Gabrielle, during their journey, had
constantly carried fruit, and things to please his childish taste, and
stretching his innocent hands towards it, plainly informed his mother
that he would have it opened.
How did the heart-wrung Gabrielle yield to his request? Not with the
tender and natural feelings of delight, with which she usually supplied
his wants, but with a tearful eye, and a tremulous hand, that with
parsimonious accuracy divided the slender portion, intended but for one
intermediate repast. As with unconscious glee the little Felix eagerly
devoured the scanty allowance, the firmness of Gabrielle nearly failed
her, for she dreaded that he would ask for more;--and if so, unless
Providence befriended her, when next he asked he could not have any
thing. Her fears, however, were happily disappointed; his appetite for
the moment satisfied, or rather allayed, he had leisure to indulge the
softer call of nature, sleep; and, laying his head upon the bosom of his
mother, he fell into the profound slumber of innocence.
At this happy result, for happiness is always comparative, the grateful
Gabrielle burst into a flood of tears, and pressed him with rapture in
her arms.
Now, at the suggestion of reviving hope, strengthened by the moment of
pleasure she had experienced, she determined to make a last attempt to
procure shelter for the night. She arose accordingly, and walking a few
paces, stopped at the first house which denoted lodgings to the
passenger. With trembling hand she applied to the door, from the humble
appearance of the house auguring that she might gain admittance; she was
deceived, however, for treatment similar to that she had already met
with, again awaited her. Hopeless she turned away, and was retiring
hastily from the spot, when a female, of vulgar and unprepossessing
form, standing at the adjoining door, enquired of her, in a voice though
far from soothing, still more gentle than any she had yet heard, if she
sought a lodging?
“I do,” Gabrielle, in a broken voice, replied.
“But can you pay for one?” asked the woman.
“I cannot immediately,” faltered Gabrielle, “but trust I shall be soon
enabled.”
“Well, but have you nothing,” enquired the woman again; “have you
nothing about you that would pay for a night’s lodging?”
“Alas! no--” answered Gabrielle, putting her hand mechanically in her
pocket, and drawing it forth again with an empty purse.
“Yes you have,” observed the woman; whose keen eye, directed by a dim
light in her passage, glanced upon the fair hand of Gabrielle; “you have
got a gold ring upon your finger. If you want a night’s lodging, and
chuse to give me that ring, I will admit you into my house, and to a
share of my room.”
The eyes of Gabrielle gazed upon the ring to which the woman alluded; it
was of plain gold, of little comparative value, but given her by Angelo
as a marriage ring. But Angelo was perfidious, and her child was in
danger of remaining unsheltered for the night--the struggle was
momentary, she sighed, drew the ring from her finger, and said, “Admit
me.”
The woman took the ring; her door, invulnerable to intreaty, opened to
the power of gold--opened even wide, and admitted the houseless
stranger. Up a narrow winding stair-case slowly she followed her
hospitable guide, who from poverty had taken its last mite, ere she
would yield it sufferance: she was conducted into a small and
meanly-furnished room, where stood a miserable single bed.
“Here,” observed the woman, scrutinising her forlorn guest, with a
suspicious eye, “here you may remain till the morning, if you chuse; you
can lay down on that bed, I shall not disturb you.”
Gabrielle, thankful to have obtained upon any terms, and in any way,
shelter for the night, expressed her gratitude to her hostess, and laid
her sleeping Felix upon the bed. The eyes of the woman, with vulgar
curiosity, not compassionate interest, were rivetted upon her, and her
tongue involuntarily yielding to the influence of the former, she
sought, by various questions and inuendos, to induce Gabrielle in some
degree to gratify it. But Gabrielle was not so disposed, she desired to
place no confidence, nor wished for vulgar uninterested participation in
griefs like her’s. To avoid, therefore, the necessity of replying, she
approached the bed, and availing herself of the proposition that had
been made, she threw herself, drest as she was, upon it, beside her
child.
With the vulgar, poverty, accompanied by superior manners (considered
pride) is ever sufficient to excite their dislike, suspicion, and
presumption: there was a native elegance about Gabrielle, which
contrasted with her humble appearance, made her an object of remark. The
vulgar can never reconcile an union so extraordinary, nor ever fail of
attaching to it the idea of some misconduct or depravity: true to the
class of beings to which she appertained, this woman viewed Gabrielle
with so much illiberal suspicion, that she resolved to remain awake for
the night, in order to keep a strict watch upon so doubtful a guest,
lest she should perpetrate some mischief, or in return for her
imprudent hospitality, for which she now severely arraigned herself,
plunder her, and endeavour to escape.
So determining, for the sake of security, she seated herself in a chair
by the fire, starting every now and then from an uneasy doze, to assure
herself that all as yet was safe. Thus passed the night; morning at
length dawned; the woman roused herself from the forgetfulness of a few
moments, into which she had irresistibly fallen, and perceiving that it
was light, conceived that her unwelcome inmate had had sufficient
benefit for the small consideration she had given, and likewise that, to
the letter, she had fulfilled her promise in permitting her to remain
for the night; night had now certainly elapsed; she therefore
immediately rose, and approaching the bed to awaken the wearied
Gabrielle, who for several hours having found it utterly impossible to
obtain a moment’s oblivion of her cares, had just at this time fallen
into a light slumber; a rough shake, intended gently to rouse her,
caused her to start up in affright.
“Come,” cried her hostess, with a constrained smile; “it is now morning,
you see--I have been as good as my word, I have given up my bed to you
all night, and I would advise you to rise at once, and endeavor to find
out some lodging that may suit you.”
Gabrielle arose, indignant but silent, for she felt the uselessness of
expostulation with such a being, whose very look spoke the narrowness
and insensibility of her soul:--forlorn too as she was, she could not
degrade herself by the attempt: taking then her child, still sleeping in
her arms, she quitted the abode of hard inhospitality, and once more
beheld herself a desolate and unsheltered wanderer.
This day passed as the former had done, in vain research, and fruitless
enquiries after Angelo;--towards evening a drizzling rain came on, and
again she was appalled with the prospect of passing the night in the
streets. Food had not entered her lips during the day, nor for almost
the whole of the preceding one; famine and the most terrible of deaths
stared her in the face:--already she saw herself perishing, exhausted by
want, unnoticed and unknown, in a foreign land;--horrible ideas overcame
her; and, heart-sick, fainting and on the point of sinking to the earth,
she leaned against the wall of a house for support.
The last reserve of fruit, the last morsel of bread had been already
yielded to the craving appetite of her child. He had wept, demanded,
and intreated for more; alas! the wretched mother had it not to give.
Weakened by exhaustion, wearied with crying, he had fallen into a
slumber; scarce able to stand herself, she held him in her arms, and
dreaded with indescribable horror the moment of his waking, when more
loudly and more impetuously his innocent voice would cry to her for
food, which again she must endure the racking agony of not having to
bestow.
“But at length his cries will cease,” said she in despair, “and he will
be at peace.---- Oh, Angelo--cruel Angelo, could’st thou but behold us!”
The rain rapidly increasing, she wrapped him in her cloak; and now, in
stern hopelessnes, awaited the climax of her fate.
While she stood, her fair arm uncovered to the inclement wind and rain,
supporting to her bosom her unconscious child, a gentleman passing by,
struck by her forlorn appearance, and the extreme delicacy of an arm,
which though emaciated gave intimation of something superior to what
that appearance conveyed, stopped for a moment, and in a gentle voice
asked her if she stood in need of aid.
The accent of the stranger struck to the heart of Gabrielle with such
powerful effect, that she was incapable of reply. He appeared to pity
her confusion, and attributing it to the probability of her having been
differently situated, he drew from his pocket a purse, and presenting it
to her, said, “If you require present assistance, take this; should you
desire further--here is my address--inform me.” So saying, he passed on;
the purse, which he had dropped upon her arm, fell to the ground, but
the card she grasped, and feeble, fainting as she was, she tottered a
few paces beneath the light of a lamp, and holding it up to her
wide-stretched eyes, decyphered the name of “Angelo D’Albini!”
Instantly a piercing shriek burst from her lips; her high-wrought
feelings nerved her with sudden momentary strength, she rushed after him
who had given her the card, she beheld him again; she essayed to get
near him, and to seize his arm--passengers intervened--she broke through
them--she gained his side--her strong emotions then overpowered her, her
limbs became nerveless, and feebly groaning forth, “Oh, Angelo! Angelo!”
she staggered, reeled, and fell to the earth.
On hearing his name uttered by the voice of distress, and one which
even then seemed not unfamiliar to him, Angelo turned hastily round, and
perceiving the female he had just spoken with lying apparently senseless
on the ground, he raised her in his arms, whilst her child, hurt and
awakened by her fall, in a low mournful cry, expressed its pain and
terror. Always humane, Angelo conveyed the insensible Gabrielle into a
house, while he dispatched some persons, whom curiosity, rather than
compassion had drawn around her, for a carriage.
Now at leisure to satisfy the anxiety he felt, he approached Gabrielle,
whose large bonnet and cloak having been thrown aside by those who were
endeavouring to recover her, her face and figure were fully
revealed--Yes, Angelo beheld, in the person of a houseless wanderer, of
a forlorn wretch, to whom in charity he had rendered assistance to save
her from perishing by want in the streets, the once happy, once
innocent, once blooming daughter of Montmorency! her whom _he_ had
destroyed--now happy, innocent, and blooming no longer! yes, Gabrielle
de Montmorency, the mistress of his youth,--the forsaken friend of his
bosom,--the mother of his children!
Speak he could not, for horror struck him dumb; he groaned aloud, and
throwing himself at her feet, franticly embraced her knees, pressed and
kissed her cold hands, and giving way to the effusions of his despair,
swore that if Gabrielle did not recover, he would die at her feet.
Prostrate he remained on the ground beside her, and no entreaties could
move him thence.
Mean time the little Felix, whose alarm having been soothed, was happily
discovered to have sustained no injury, came hastening, fast as his
tender limbs would allow, towards his mother;--soon as Angelo beheld the
boy, his anguish was for a moment directed into another channel. As the
innocent, in surprise and fear, clung round the knees of its mother, and
looked with fond enquiry in her pallid face, Angelo seized him in his
arms, and with convulsive agony pressed him to his breast. Felix first
cried aloud, and struggled to get loose; but finding he could not, gazed
earnestly upon him, when it seemed even as if faint recollection glanced
across his infant mind, for he submitted without reluctance to his
caresses.
Whether awakened to life by the well-known voice of her child dimly
striking on her ear, or whether by the unaided operations of nature,
Gabrielle opened her languid eyes, and beheld before her the two beings
dearest to her in existence. She endeavoured to raise herself in her
chair, but her power was unequal to the effort, and again she sank back.
To behold that she lived, that Gabrielle lived, though it nearly
distracted him with joy, recalled to Angelo his energies; he sprang
instantly from the earth with hands clasped, and eyes overflowing with
tears of wild delight; his heart, late oppressed with despair, now
throbbed with almost agonising bliss; he took but one more kiss of her
pale hand, and then was capable of hastening the movements for her
departure. Supported by a couple of females, who had humanely admitted
her into their house, Gabrielle was conveyed to the carriage which
awaited her, and Angelo, trembling with eagerness, followed with his
boy in his arms, first making a suitable compensation to those who had
lent their necessary assistance.
Now, with his recovered Gabrielle, hastening to his own residence, he
placed his beloved Felix on his knee, and laid the head of his
still-fainting mother upon his bosom. Thus they proceeded in a silence
uninterrupted but by his own eager exclamations, now of bitter
self-reproach, now of tenderness towards the injured, long-lost object
of his love, now to his child, who seemed to have forgotten his hunger
in innocent grief for the situation in which he beheld his mother.
At the door of a sumptuous habitation the carriage stopped; Angelo bore
into his house the fragile form of her who alone of all women he yet
continued to love. There, safe from danger, tumult, and inconvenience,
he trusted that she would speedily revive. She was conveyed immediately
into a chamber, and placed in bed; and eager then again to behold her,
he entered the room, which for a few moments he had quitted, and gazing
upon her with streaming eyes, he seated himself in silence beside the
bed, having closed the curtains that she might repose. When every one
was withdrawn, Gabrielle, with feeble hand, drew aside the curtain: this
movement was sufficient, and Angelo in an instant was on his knees by
her side, covering her hand with kisses, while he deluged it in tears.
“Angelo,” she faintly murmured,--“where is my Felix?--if safe with you,
I can die resigned.”
“Oh, my Gabrielle, talk not of death, unless you would drive me to
madness;” cried Angelo wildly--“live, live for your Felix, and for
me.”--
“Angelo, I am sick at heart--I am dying--I cannot say to you now all I
desire, nor receive from you the explanation you might wish to
give.--Say then, where is my beloved child?--I see him not.”
“He is safe, my beloved--compose yourself; he is under this roof with
ourselves.”
“Alas! alas! poor child,” in broken accents faltered Gabrielle, “he is
perishing from want---- he---- he has not tasted food for nearly too
days.”--
“Heavenly God! what do I hear!” cried Angelo, starting up, and striking
his forehead with his clenched hand.
“Yes, yes--it is too true,” murmured Gabrielle.----
“And you--and you, oh Gabrielle!--Monster! devil! that I am, can I--oh
can I ever hide from myself, that, deserted by me, my wife and child
were--were on the point of perishing from hunger in the streets!”--He
burst into tears, and covering his face with his hands, now called
maledictions on himself, and now gazing upon the almost expiring
Gabrielle, beat in agony his breast. Gabrielle sought not to assuage the
remorseful anguish of those sensations that were distracting Angelo; she
wished him to feel the full enormity of his guilt, and of the miseries
it had entailed upon them; but the thought of her beloved child was
chief in her heart, and waving her hand towards him, she faintly
cried--“Felix--think of Felix.”
Angelo recalled, rushed from the room, and in a few moments returned,
accompanied by the child, whose long abstinence from food began to be
severely felt by him, and the fervid glow of his cheek, was displaced by
a languid paleness.
Quick as thought a table was covered with various refreshments, and
Angelo, who knew that by attending first to the wants of her child, he
acted most conformably to the wishes of Gabrielle, placed before him
such things as he conceived most appropriate to his tender appetite; and
while eagerly and anxiously he was intent upon satisfying it, he
prevailed upon the enfeebled Gabrielle to take a little wine, which with
trembling hand, and cheek crimsoned by compunctious reflection he held
to her lips. By degrees, as she became somewhat re-animated by the
restoratives which Angelo, in anguished entreaty pressed her to accept,
she felt enabled to sustain a little conversation; and still more
capable did she feel of compassing the effort, when in the explanation
of Angelo, even in the midst of his self-reproaches, she discovered how
comparatively short a period to what she had imagined, he had remained
in his unhappy delusion.
Rejoiced at this soothing conviction, her long oppressed heart beat with
increased emotion; her weakened spirits rose to the degree of pleasure,
and she could bear to listen to, and even touch upon the terrible events
that had intervened since their separation. Oriana, the fiend Oriana,
was mutually and justly recognised as the author of the delusions of the
one, and consequent misfortunes of the other; and though no decided
proof of her infamy existed, yet, by re-tracing a long line of
incident, and combining circumstances apparently trifling at the time,
no doubt remained in the minds of either; further too was the idea
confirmed by the treatment which Gabrielle described herself to have
experienced from the Genoese, when a distracted wretch she had flown to
her, as her last hope of acquiring some information of him who had
abandoned her, and by the sudden change of conduct and manners in the
worthless Paulina.
Thus then, mutual and perfect explanation ensued; Angelo had written
repeatedly to Gabrielle, and received no answer; and these dear letters,
a single sentence of which would have breathed new life into her soul,
she had never even beheld. “Oh, Angelo, Angelo!” cried Gabrielle, in a
voice that for the first moment conveyed aught like reproach, “why, why,
were ever those letters, or the present explanation, rendered
necessary?”
“Ah, Gabrielle,” exclaimed Angelo, precipitating himself on his knees,
and snatching her hand to his lips, “be merciful as you are fair!”
Gabrielle shed a tear upon the burning cheek of the repentant
Angelo.--She gently pressed his hand, which wildly held her’s, and in
that moment, so dear to both, the happiness of him who was forgiven, was
equalled only by the happiness of her who forgave.
Gabrielle forgot, or at least forgave the errors of the past, and once
more the sunbeams of hope pierced through the gloomy shadows of despair.
But far, far more for her children than for herself, did Gabrielle
rejoice that she had found again her lover, and found him still
unchanged. She could not disguise from her proud and superior mind, (and
with a pang at her heart she admitted it) that Angelo had sadly wandered
from his allegiance to her; “and too surely,” thought she, “when the
imagination is suborned, the heart, for a time, wanders with it, and
partakes of its illusion--the senses cannot stray entirely alone.” These
painful ideas she would endeavour to check and to repress, least pride,
gaining the ascendancy over duty, should lead her in selfish disgust or
resentment at the bitter conviction, to leave unfinished the glorious
and noble resolution she had so far pursued. To quit in angry, mortified
self-love, the father of her children,--to deprive them, perhaps, of a
protector,--alienating from them, by such conduct, the love which
through her he bore them; “No--perish, perish for ever,” she cried,
“such miserable refinement of selfish feeling--for my children’s sake,
tenfold grief and humiliation could I bear! disgrace, ignominy, and
contempt, the pangs of despised and insulted love. By such chastisement
inflicted on my spirit, on the spirit of a Montmorency, who infamously
has singly descended from the path of high honor, traced by her
ancestors, can she alone hope, in the eye of heaven, to retrieve her
manifold offences.”