Ernest Linwood

R >> r, The Inner Life of the Author >> Ernest Linwood

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"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
Theresa."

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 Theresa 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."

CHAPTER LV.

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.
Theresa 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."

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