Ernest Linwood Part 55

"It will serve as a background to his filial virtues and bring them out in bright and beautiful relief. I admire, I honor him a thousand times more than if he were the heir of an unspotted name, a glorious ancestry.

A father's crimes cannot reflect shame on a son so pure and upright.

Besides, he bears another name, and the world knows not his clouded lineage."

My heart warmed at her generous praises of Richard, who was every day more and more endeared to my affections. Where was he now? Had he commenced his mission, and gone to the gloomy cell where his father was imprisoned? He did not wish me to accompany him the first time. What a meeting it must be! He had never consciously beheld his father. The father had no knowledge of his deserted son. In the dungeon's gloom, the living grave of hope, joy, and fame, the recognition would take place.

With what feelings would the poor, blasted criminal behold the n.o.ble boy, on whom he had never bestowed one parental care, coming like an angel, if not to unbar his prison doors, to unlock for him the golden gates of heaven!

I was too weary for my journey, too much exhausted from agitation to wait for Richard's return, but I could not lay my head on the pillow before writing to Mrs. Linwood and Edith, and telling them the tidings I had learned of the beloved exile. And now the first stormy emotions had subsided, grat.i.tude, deep and holy grat.i.tude, triumphed over every other feeling. Far, far away as he was, he was with a friend; he was in all human probability safe, and he could learn in time how deeply he had wronged me.

Often, on bended knees, with weeping eyes and rending sighs had I breathed this prayer,--"Only let him know that I am still worthy of his love, and I am willing to resign it,--let me be justified in his sight, and I am willing to devote my future life to _Thee_."

The path was opening, the way clearing, and my faith and resignation about to be proved. I recognized the divine arrangement of Providence in the apparently accidental circ.u.mstances of my life, and my soul vindicated the justice as well as adored the mercy of the Most High.

A voice seemed whispering in my ear, "O thou afflicted and tossed with tempests! there is a haven where thy weary bark shall find rest. I, who once bore the burden of life, know its sorrows and temptations, its wormwood and its gall. I bore the infirmities of man, that I might pity and forgive; I bore the crown of thorns, that thou mightest wear the roses of Paradise; I drained the dregs of human agony, that thou mightest drink the wine of immortality. Is not my love pa.s.sing the love of man, and worth the sacrifice of earth's fleeting joys?"

As the heavenly accents seemed to die away, like a strain of sweet, low harmony, came murmuring the holy refrain--

"Star of the East, the horizon adorning, Guide where the infant Redeemer is laid."

CHAPTER LIII.

Richard had visited the Tombs, but had not seen his father. The sight, the air, the ponderous gloom of the awful prison-house, was as much as he had fort.i.tude to bear; and though he had at first thought preferred meeting him in the shadows of night, he recoiled from its additional horrors.

Poor fellow! I felt heart-sick for him. On one side the memory of his mother's wrongs,--on the other, his father's sufferings and disgrace. I knew by my own bitter experience the conflict he was enduring.

"After we have once met," he said, "the bitterest pang will be over."

When he returned, I was shocked at the suffering his countenance expressed. I sat down by him in silence, and took his hand in mine, for I saw that his heart was full.

"I cannot take you _there_, Gabriella," were the first words he uttered.

"If my nerves are all unstrung, how will yours sustain the shock? He told me not to bring you, that your presence would only aggravate his sufferings."

"Did I not come to share your duties, Richard? and will it not be easier to go hand in hand, though we do tread a th.o.r.n.y path? I have heard of women who devote their whole lives to visiting the dungeons of the doomed, and pouring oil and balm into the wounds of penitence and remorse; women who know nothing of the prisoner, but that he is a sinful and suffering son of Adam,--angels of compa.s.sion, following with lowly hearts the footsteps of their divine Master. O my brother, think me not so weak and selfish. I will convince you that I have fort.i.tude, though you believe it not. Dr. Harlowe thinks I have a great deal. But, Richard, is it too painful to speak of the interview you so much dreaded? Does _he_ look more wretched than you feared?"

"Look, Gabriella! Oh, he is a wreck, a melancholy wreck of a once n.o.ble man. Worn, haggard, gloomy, and despairing, he is the very personification of a sin-blasted being, a lost, ruined spirit. I had prepared myself for something mournful and degraded, but not for such a sight as this. O what an awful thing it is to give oneself up to the dominion of evil, till one seems to live, and move, and have their being in it! How awful to be consumed by slow, baleful fires, till nothing but smouldering ashes and smoking cinders are left! My G.o.d! Gabriella, I never realized before what _accursed_ meant."

He started up, and walked up and down the room, just as Ernest used to do, unable to control the vehemence of his emotions.

"Father!" he exclaimed, "how I could have loved, revered, adored my father, had he been what my youthful heart has so panted to embrace. I loved my mother,--Heaven knows I did; but there always seemed majesty as well as beauty in the name of father, and I longed to reverence, as well as to love. Mr. Clyde was a good man, and I honored him; he was my benefactor, and I was grateful to him,--but he wanted the intellectual grandeur, to which my soul longed to pay homage. I was always forming an image in my own mind of what a father should be,--pure, upright, and commanding,--a being to whom I could look up as to an earthly divinity, who could satisfy the wants of my venerating nature."

"It is thus I have done," I cried, struck by the peculiar sympathy of our feelings. "In the dreams of my childhood, a vague but glorious form reigned with the sovereignty of a king and the sanct.i.ty of a high-priest, and imagination offered daily incense at its throne. Never, till I read my mother's history, was the illusion dispelled. But how did he welcome you, Richard? Surely he was glad and proud to find a son in you."

"He is no longer capable of pride or joy. He is burnt out, as it were.

But he did at last show some emotion, when made to believe that I was the son of Theresa." His hand trembled, and his hard, sunken eye momentarily softened. "Did you come here to mock and upbraid me?" he cried, concealing his sensibility under a kind of fierce sullenness.

"What wrong have I done you? I deserted you, it is true, but I saved you from the influence of my accursed example, which might have dragged you to the burning jaws of h.e.l.l. Go, and leave me to my doom. Leave me in the living grave my own unhallowed hands have dug. I want no sympathy, no companions.h.i.+p,--and least of all, yours. Every time I look on you, I feel as if coals of fire were eating in my heart."

"Remorse, Richard," I exclaimed, "remorse! Oh! he feels. Our ministrations will not be in vain. Did you tell him that I was with you, that I came to comfort and to do him good?"

"I did; but he bade me tell you, that if he wanted comfort, it could not come through you,--that he would far rather his tortures were increased than diminished, that he might, he said, become inured to sufferings, which would continue as long as Almighty vengeance could inflict and immortality endure. My dear sister, I ought not to repeat such things, but the words ring in my ears like a funeral knell."

"Let us not speak of him any more at present," he added, reseating himself at my side, and he took my hand and pressed it on his throbbing temples. "There is sweetness in a sister's sympathy, balm in her gentle touch."

Mrs. Brahan, who had considerately left us alone, soon entered, saying it was luncheon time, and that a gla.s.s of wine would do us all good. Mr.

Brahan followed her, whose intelligent and animated conversation drew our minds from the subjects that engrossed our thoughts. It was well for me that I had an opportunity of becoming so intimately acquainted with a married pair like Mr. and Mrs. Brahan. It convinced me that the most perfect confidence was compatible with the fondest love, and that the purest happiness earth is capable of imparting, is found in the union of two constant, trusting hearts.

"We have been married seventeen years," said Mrs. Brahan, in a glow of grateful affection, "and I have never seen a cloud of distrust on my husband's brow. We have had cares,--as who has not,--but they have only made us more dear to each, other, by calling forth mutual tenderness and sympathy. Ours was not one of those romantic attachments which partake of the wildness of insanity, but a serene, steady flame, that burns brighter and brighter as life rolls on."

She spoke out of the abundance of her heart, without meaning to contrast her own bright lot with mine, but I could not help envying her this unclouded suns.h.i.+ne of love. I tried to rejoice with her, without sighing for my own darker destiny; but there is an alloy of selfishness in the purest gold of our natures. At least, there is in mine.

There was another happy pair,--Mr. Regulus and his wild Madge. A letter from her, forwarded by Mrs. Linwood soon after our arrival in New York, breathed, in her own characteristic language, the most perfect felicity, mingled with heart-felt sympathy and affection. Their bridal hours were saddened by my misfortunes; and they were compelled to leave me when I was unconscious of their departure. Margaret was delighted with every thing around and about her,--the place, the people, and most of all her husband; though, in imitation of the Swedish wife, she called him her bear, her buffalo, and mastadon. The exuberant energies of her character, that had been rioting in all their native wildness, had now a n.o.ble framework to grasp round, and would in time form a beautiful domestic bower, beneath whose shade all household joys and graces would bloom and multiply.

I have antic.i.p.ated the reception of this letter, but I feared I might forget to mention it. It is delightful to see a fine character gradually wrought out of seemingly rough and unpromising elements. It is beautiful to witness the triumph of pure, disinterested affection in the heart of woman. It is sweet to know that the angel of wedded love scatters thornless flowers in some happy homes,--that there are some thresholds not sprinkled by blood, but guarded by confidence, which the _destroying demon_ of the household is not permitted to pa.s.s over.

I do not like to turn back to myself, lest they who follow me should find the path too shadowy and th.o.r.n.y. But is it not said that they who go forth weeping, bearing precious seed, shall come again rejoicing, bending under the weight of golden sheaves?

I wrote to Ernest for the first time, for we had never been parted before. Again and again I commenced, and threw down the pen in despair.

My heart seemed locked, closed as with Bastile bars. What words of mine could pierce through the cloud of infamy in which his remembrance wrapped me? He would not believe my strange, improbable tale. He would cast it from him as a device of the evil spirit, and brand me with a deeper curse. No! if he was so willing to cast me off, to leave me so coldly and cruelly, without one farewell line, one wish to know whether I were living or dead, let him be. Why should I intrude my vindication on him, when he cared not to hear it? He had no right to believe me guilty. Had a winged spirit from another sphere come and told me that _he_ was false, I would have spurned the accusation, and clung to him more closely and more confidingly.

"But you knew his infirmity," whispered accusing conscience, "even before you loved him; and have you not seen him writhing at your feet in agonies of remorse, for the indulgence of pa.s.sions more torturing to himself than to you! It is you who have driven him from country and home, innocently, it is true, but he is not less a wanderer and an exile. Write and tell him the simple, holy truth, then folding your hands meekly over your heart, leave the result to the disposal of the G.o.d of futurity."

Then words came like water rus.h.i.+ng through breaking ice. They came without effort or volition, and I knew not what they were till I saw them looking at me from the paper, like my own image reflected in a gla.s.s. Had I been writing a page for the book of G.o.d's remembrance, it could not have been more nakedly true. I do believe there is inspiration now given to the spirit in the extremity of its need, and that we often speak and write as if moved by the Holy Ghost, and language comes to us in a Pentecostal shower, burning with heaven's fire, and tongues of flame are put in our mouth, and our spirits move as with the wings of a mighty wind.

I recollect the closing sentence of the letter. I knew it contained my fate; and yet I felt that I had not the power to change it.

"Come back to your country, your mother, and Edith. I do not bid you come back to me, for it seems that the distance that separates us is too immeasurable to be overcome. I remember telling you, when the midnight moon was s.h.i.+ning upon us in the solitude of our chamber, that I saw as in a vision a frightful abyss opening between us, and I stood on one icy brink and you on the other, and I saw you receding further and further from me, and my arms vainly sought to reach over the cold chasm, and my own voice came back to me in mournful echoes. That vision is realized.

Our hearts can never again meet till that gulf is closed, and confidence firm as a rock makes a bridge for our souls.

"I have loved you as man never should be loved, and that love can never pa.s.s away. But from the deathlike trance in which you left me, my spirit has risen with holier views of life and its duties. An union, so desolated by storms of pa.s.sion as ours has been, must be sinful and unhallowed in the sight of G.o.d. It has been severed by the hand of violence, and never, with my consent, will be renewed, unless we can make a new covenant, to which the bow of heaven's peace shall be an everlasting sign; till pa.s.sion shall be exalted by esteem, love sustained by confidence, and religion pure and undefiled be the sovereign principle of our lives."

CHAPTER LIV.

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 pa.s.sed ponderous iron doors that reminded me of Milton's description of the gates of h.e.l.l, till the prison officer who preceded us paused before one of those grim portals, and inserting a ma.s.sy key, a heavy grating sound sc.r.a.ped and lacerated my ear.

"Wait one moment," I gasped, leaning almost powerless on the shoulder of Richard.

"I feared so," said he, pa.s.sing 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."