Chapter XVII

The virtue and perseverance of Gabrielle, who, with a severe conscientiousness that set self at nought, endeavoured as much as possible to recover the fatal lapse of her inexperienced youth, and with an ever-watchful zeal, sedulously to preserve, even in its remotest ramifications, society from being injured by her errors, reaped in so much the reward of those virtues which glowed at her heart, independently of its weakness, that Angelo became to her all that her fond love, all that her delicate mind could desire; and could but the past have been obliterated, he had been perfect--he appeared no longer the wandering creature of temptation, the precipitate unguarded youth; he was sobered into the domestic husband, the tender father, and the faithful friend.

No longer now the ephemeral, but passionate admirer of every novel face,--no longer to be attracted by the blandishments of the meretricious part of the sex, or artifices of the wary prude, Gabrielle began to behold in him the being she had long laboured to render him, who becoming such, recompensed her for every misery, save one--the eternal misery, the eternal remorse of her first error, and its dread consequences, in having precipitated to his grave her high-soul’d, honorable father!

She now saw realising, as hope with its fair finger pointed to a blest perspective, the joyous certainty of protection for her children, protection from him who best was entitled to grant it--to whom they owed that they were called into existence.

The only shadow of error in the present conduct of Angelo was his continued love of play, but that, so long as he preserved himself from embarrassment, Gabrielle was disposed to deem as an amusement, rather than a destructive habit, which, if pursued, almost invariably involves in ruin. Short-sighted mortals that we are, this very propensity, viewed by Gabrielle in a light so comparatively trivial, was of itself sufficient to blast, in a single instant, those fairy fabrics of future happiness for her children, on which her mind delighted to dwell.

Five years elapsed, and found Angelo still unchanged; at the termination of this period, he remained what at its commencement he had become. His disposition, and the fine qualities of his heart, which had seemed but in their germ, appeared mellowed only by the fostering hand of time; that which in sincere love and penitence he had commenced, had grown insensibly into a conduct of system, and become dearest and most congenial to his heart. Such is the influence and power of virtue, that when once its dictates are in sincerity adopted, it becomes agreeable to the heart of man, as it is best for the sanity of his soul, and for his temporal happiness.

The young Felix, esteemed their highest treasure, and whose name had been given him by the fond enthusiasm of a father, who considered that he would constitute their highest happiness, increased daily in strength and beauty; but while the doting eyes of the father could discern in him no fault, the apprehensive eyes of the mother scrutinized more deeply; she beheld him lovely and engaging, but beheld with uneasiness an uncontrollable impetuousness of manner, a boldness and presumption, with, most material fault of all, a tendency to deviate from the truth in the occasional relation of events in which he might be concerned.

But when Gabrielle expressed sometimes her anxious sentiments upon this head, the partial father laughed, and would tell her that she refined too much, that she must not look for excellence like her own, even in her children; or otherwise, with more of exultation than regret, attribute all to early indications of spirit and superior genius.

Earnestly desirous, at length, of having with her, without further delay, her heart-cherished but long unseen daughter, Gabrielle, who had till this period temporised with, and yielded reluctantly to the tender intreaties of her excellent friend Madame Bertrand, still to retain her, became now absolutely impatient, and resolved seriously to demand her, and in such a way that should not have it in her power to evade her further.

It was almost a year since Gabrielle had last heard from her, in answer to a request that she would only quit Switzerland for a few months, and be herself the guardian of her adopted child to her parents. In her letter then, Madame Bertrand had informed her, that softened at length by the long attachment and persevering solicitations of M. Boffuet, she had at last consented to become his wife, and stated the event to have taken place a few weeks previous to her writing. “Ah, dearest Gabrielle,” observed this excellent friend, “it is no longer then purely for the sake of society--or for the tender love I bear to Agnes, that I desire to retain her, but from higher considerations.--Alas! forgive me, if even _yet_ my mind is not satisfied to resign her to you! ’Tis true, indeed, the constancy and attachment of D’Albini hath now undergone very considerable test, and hath remained unshaken; he is happy with you, and feels a pride in acknowledging by his conduct that he is so.--Why, then--(for am I not your friend, and may speak freely), why then hesitate to confirm to himself, far as by earthly ties it could be confirmed, the happiness he now enjoys?”

“Why is it, that still wavering, procrastinating, irresolute, he prefers to linger through life with you, in a feverish, unsatisfactory union, valuing, esteeming, and loving you as a wife in all the dearest attributes of one, _save the name_?

“How to himself can he be so denying and severe, as voluntarily to debar himself of the greatest and most rational enjoyment which we are empowered to make for ourselves here below--those dear and tender ties which mortals are allowed to form, and to rivet, and which are indissoluble even until death? Why should you not be to him in _effect_ that which you are in _spirit_? and, while his heart proudly avows you by the name of wife, why should not the world confess you so in reality? Not till that joyful moment takes place, oh! Gabrielle, not till D’Albini places you on that eminence, so considered by society, honored and revered, will my mind give full and complete accedence to his sincerity. When I perceive that he no longer doubts _himself_, I shall not doubt him either, and when I perceive that he loves his children sufficiently to save them from unmeritted ignominy, then no longer shall I hesitate to resign to him a daughter.”

So, in the very last epistle received from her, wrote the just and rational Bertrand. Gabrielle in her heart allowed, and therefore was too honest to deny, that she felt the severe, incontrovertible truth of her observations, but still her confidence in Angelo was such, that no doubt could for a moment harbour there. She wished to believe, that delicacy, joined to a conviction of its being completely unnecessary as a stronger tie, prevented him now from proposing to her the form of marriage. “Angelo is so sincere a convert,” said she mentally, “that there is no danger of his relapsing into error, however unshackled he may be. So well do I know that noble nature, that sure am I, if he suspected within himself the possibility of ever wandering, he would instantly unite himself to me by the strongest of all possible bonds, in order to operate as a check upon his conduct.”

But Gabrielle erred in this instance, from want of proper discrimination, and erred likewise in thinking the best of the man she loved. She erred in the first instance, because neither her education, her knowledge of, or commerce with the world, placed before her mind, in a point of view sufficiently strong, the absolute _necessity_ of marriage between those persons who form an intercourse of sincere attachment, who desire to live for each other, and who, in consequence of such intercourse produce to the world human beings, who will call them _parents_, and to whom therefore they owe it to involve them as little as possible in the consequences of their mutual error, by sooner or later endeavouring to give them that consideration in the world, to which, from the mode of their birth, they would not be immediately entitled.

She erred too, in her conception of Angelo; for he in effect _feared_ marriage, more than he _loved_ Gabrielle, or considered his children’s estimation in society. Never had he even named marriage to her; he would not either allow himself to revert to it even distantly, or in perspective, in her presence or in solitude. From the libertine pursuits of his early youth he had conceived a prejudice against it--from his subsequent knowledge of the worst part of the sex, judging from them of the whole, a disgust, and ultimately a dread.

It is one characteristic of the libertine, that he detests marriage, for it is the immutable consequence attendant on the long pursuit of vicious and ignoble pleasures, which unhinge the mind, and unfit the soul for the calm delights of virtue. Thus, though the excellent conduct, superior mind, and personal attractions of Gabrielle, rivetted to her in unwearied fondness the heart of Angelo, yet had he once ventured to have set the seal of eternal union upon that fondness, he would have felt himself no longer an independent being; and the idea of a formal duty would have pressed so heavily upon his mind, as to render irksome and displeasing, that very conduct, which, pursued from inclination alone, wore varied and unfading charms.

But Gabrielle judged not thus, her opinion was regulated by her love, and by her wishes: pursuant to her determination she wrote to Madame Bertrand, and insisted that it was now absolutely necessary that Angelo should behold his daughter, that no more time should be permitted to elapse ere she took strong hold of his affections, which could be only done by appearing before him, and remaining constantly under his own eyes.

“I have two children,” added Gabrielle; “the one that is not with me is no less dear to my heart than the one that is continually in my sight; but with Angelo it may be otherwise, for he has never even seen his daughter, while I, though I should never behold her more, bear her sweet infant features in my mind,--remember, as though it were but yesterday, those bitter hours when you held her in your arms, when I gazed on her indeed, but did not see her; and remember too, what, never while life endures I can forget, the scene of horror and despair in which I gave her birth, and which is impressed upon my heart in characters that are indelible.

“Let me then once more embrace that beloved child, my dear and valued friend; let me hasten to present her to her father, and communicate to his heart a portion of the tenderness which animates my own--let us no longer defer a moment which has been already deferred too long, and which implicates so deeply her future welfare. I shall expect that my kind Bertrand will no longer attempt to influence my present wish, by those well-meant and rational objections, which, however I may in a degree admit their propriety, must no longer sway me, as they are answered in my mind by considerations which outbalance them.”

To this letter Gabrielle expected a prompt and acquiescent reply, while Angelo, with his natural impetuosity, fixed his ardent hopes upon the prospect of speedily embracing a daughter, whom he longed to behold. Several weeks elapsed however, and no answer arrived; Gabrielle allayed her impatience, in the fond hope that Madame Bertrand was prepairing for her a delightful surprise, and that she would suddenly appear before them with the anxiously-expected Agnes. But when at length such a time elapsed, as to render the indulgence of this hope no longer rational, Gabrielle, half indignant at a conduct which when assuming to itself the right of dictating to her best and dearest feelings, and of combating those intentions which she felt the importance of fulfilling, appeared rather an abuse, than a prerogative of friendship, prepared to address her again, but in style more decisive a letter suddenly arrived, which at once ended their hopes by plunging them in despair--it was as follows:

“Oh, beloved Gabrielle, in what language dare I address you! how
break to you the dreadful event which I have to disclose!--Oh!
would that some intuitive suspicion might give you a glance of the
fatal truth, and spare me a task beyond that of confirming it:--but
I must proceed--I must have mercy upon the dreadful suspense and
agony you endure at this moment. Know then that your child, your
Agnes--do I live to say it--I know not what at this period may be
her fate!

“Let me endeavor, if possible, to collect my distracted thoughts,
and detail to you as I can, the events of the last six months. I
informed you that I had become the wife of Boffuet---- Ah!
miserable for me was the day that I did so. Can you believe it,
Gabrielle, that persevering attachment, those perpetual attentions
were not directed to me, but to those trifling possessions which I
called mine.

“To be brief, scarce had the laws of marriage rendered his my
slender property, than the man changed, and changed not gradually,
but at once. Soon was I deprived of my few accustomed comforts,
debarred even of necessaries, and by the line of conduct which the
selfish and hypocritical Boffuet assumed immediately that he
obtained a right to dictate to mine, it appeared as though he was
desirous of hastening me to the grave, that he might have
uncontrolled possession of all, but without the necessity of being
likewise encumbered with me. Ah! when a woman at my time of life
marries, and exchanges the certain comfort that was her’s, for a
precarious addition, resulting from the society of a husband, what
has she to expect in reality, but useless regret and bitter
repentance?

“To proceed however; I could have borne perhaps with patience the
infamy of his conduct, though unlooked for towards myself alone,
but that which struck me to the heart, which destroyed me nearly,
was the gloomy and illiberal eye with which he regarded my idolized
Agnes. His contracted soul, ever thirsting for gold, desired to
appropriate wholly to himself that sum which you forced on me in
his presence, at your departure, and which, in an unguarded moment,
I had acknowledged to have preserved still untouched for our Agnes.

“At the same time that he desired to appropriate to himself this
little sum, which fondly I had anticipated at my death to double
and treble, by the whole of what I possessed, he still could not
endure that the innocent child should remain beneath the roof.
Every little indulgence, each little dainty that my fond love had
procured for her, drew from his heart so many drops of blood; but
perceiving that his base and grovelling insinuations produced no
effect upon me, he quickly abridged, and soon entirely deprived me
of the means of continuing a conduct which had ever constituted my
chief delight. Each day he became a meaner and more vulgar tyrant;
each day he loudly arraigned me for my folly and obstinacy, in
persisting to burthen him with the support of a child whose parents
were willing and anxious to receive her.

“Oh, Gabrielle! Gabrielle, now do I hear--now do I feel your
reproaches, those bitter reproaches which your noble heart
involuntarily makes me, that under such circumstances when last I
wrote, I should still have refused to deliver up your child--but
oh, spare, I implore you spare me! I now see, alas, that I carried
my zeal for the future welfare of that child to an unpardonable
length, that it would have been more prudent, and more just, to
have yielded to your requests, but unhappily I conceived that you
were more enthusiastic than reflective; led away more by your
desire to behold your child, than by your conviction of the
propriety of withdrawing her from me--and that it was better our
Agnes should suffer some slight discomforts in her childhood, than
become perhaps the victim of neglect and misfortune at maturer
years. But ah! let me speak the whole truth, and acknowledge what
conscience at this moment whispers--it is, that the more miserable
I became, the more I needed the cheering and beloved society of the
only being near, who felt an interest for me.

“At length the conduct of Boffuet grew so intolerable as to render
existence almost a curse to me.--He assumed an absolute right not
only over all I possessed, but the right to direct my slightest
movements and actions. His cheerless penury became such as to chill
me to the heart; his savage parsimony exceeded conception; and on
the innocent Agnes he looked daily with deepened gloom and
malignity; the beloved girl dreaded to approach him, tears were
almost always in her lovely eyes; my heart died within me to behold
her youthful sorrows, yet to have expostulated with a being
obdurate and insensible as Boffuet, would, I felt, only aggravate
our mutual unhappiness.

“One day, ah,--let me hasten to conclude, one day for a few moments
I quitted the cottage in order to breathe at liberty, for even that
I could not do in presence of Boffuet. I left our Agnes playing in
the garden, while the savage Boffuet, was as I conceived, immured
in his room, hatching fresh plans to torture and distress. Finding
herself alone, and as she believed unobserved, the innocent child,
from whom every little indulgence was restricted, busily began to
gather some grapes, to satisfy with glee her childish appetite.
Instantly Boffuet, who from a window in his chamber could perceive
all that passed in the garden, descended furiously, and seizing
Agnes by the arm--inflicted on her--can I, dare I speak it to a
tender mother, when even my own heart rises at the thought, the
brutal chastisement of several blows! This done, he quitted the
garden to procure, as he said, a whip, which hung in his chamber,
still further to inflict on her such punishment as should make her
remember the criminality of theft.

“Abominable, base, and pretended construction; theft in her own
mansion--in the mansion of her infancy, where all it contained had
by me been long and fondly recognised as her’s; it was the loss of
the grapes, and not the theft which the grovelling and malignant
soul of Boffuet led him to revenge.

“Whether, however, it was the terror inspired by the anticipation
of cruel chastisement, or the resentment inspired by that already
received, for Agnes had been nourished in the bosom of tenderest
indulgence, and was ever unused to the voice of reproof even, till
the infamous Boffuet made it familiar to her ear, I know not; but
when he returned into the garden, he could no where perceive the
object of his savage and intemperate wrath; vexed to the soul, and
boiling with disappointed rage, he sought the cottage throughout,
swearing that when she appeared, he would make her repent of her
temerity in attempting to escape him.

“He returned then to his chamber, as a tyger disappointed of prey
would return to its den. Hour after hour elapsed, and Agnes did not
appear; her escape, which when I learnt I had first been tempted to
rejoice in, I now began to view with sensations of the deepest
alarm; towards night, when she did not return, my anxiety knew no
bounds, I ran about distracted from cottage to cottage, I called
her among the mountains, I shrieked forth her name in the valleys;
I bent over the edge of the steep, and looked for her mangled form
down the dizzying abyss; I heard not her voice, I saw her not, I
beheld no traces of her.

“I returned home, like a maniac, and losing all terror of the
tyrant Boffuet in the agony which rent my heart, I flew to his
chamber, and upbraided him in the bitterest language my feelings
could suggest, of having driven my child, the rightful owner of the
cottage in which he lived, of having driven her from her home,
which but for him she never would have quitted. Savage with fury,
and impatient at reproaches to which he was unaccustomed, he
started up, and swore that if I did not instantly retire, he would
thrust me out of the house, which I should never enter more, adding
that although I presumed to consider it as mine, it was so no
longer, but lawfully appertained to him, and that no one should
remain in it that was not agreeable to him.

“Mad with indignation and contending feelings, I rushed from his
presence, and sought again, in the dead of the night, the beloved
innocent I had lost; my tender child, my consoling and accustomed
dear little companion.---- But alas! alas! my search was vain; so
it has continued from that fatal day. I have received no tidings of
her, I have no more beheld that sweet face but in my dreams--what
do I say--ah! she is never from my side!

“Oh, God! how do I tremble to think what may be at this moment her
fate--has she fallen down the steep rock, and perished in the
bottomless abyss; or bewildered, and unable to retrace her path,
has she, in the labyrinths of some gloomy forest, become the victim
of famine, or prey of ferocious beasts!----

“These dreadful ideas by turns pervade my brain; I start from
sleep, and think I behold her falling down the precipice, torn and
mangled by its rugged sides!--that tender form!--then do my cries
resound through the cottage, and sleep for that night flies my
eyes. Oh, Gabrielle! reproach, upbraid, abhor me, yet pity me--but
if you cannot, learn, that though my death will not restore to you
your child, that, hastened by a broken heart, it will soon expiate
my involuntary offence.

“I need not add, that should ere that now wished event the remotest
glimmer of hope present itself, to let me think that yet she lives,
or tidings of her fate arise, that instantly I will transmit to you
the intelligence, however slight, however vague. I forgot to
mention to you, among the list of incalculable horrors and
privations brought on me by my imprudent marriage, that every
little ornamental trifle with which my love had delighted, for the
magnificence of our solitude alone, to deck my idol, the grasping
hand of the narrow-soul’d Boffuet gradually and entirely
confiscated; one thing however, and one alone, was saved from his
hungry avarice, it was that valuable treasure, that medallion,
which at parting with your babe you fastened round her neck, and
which contained in it documents, (as you justly considered them) so
accurate, and so material, respecting the family of her father, and
through him of her’s. Boffuet, who knew something of it, enquired
of me concerning it; I told him it was lost, and after that,
conceiving that the best mode of preserving it would be to place it
in the bosom of our daughter, for no depository of mine was
respected by him, I did so, and easily managed to conceal from
view, by her dress, the chain which attached it.

“As your beloved Agnes had never beheld you, and as I constantly
brought you before her young mind, in such points of view as to
make you, though unseen, enthusiastically loved and appreciated by
her, this only gift of your’s, and which I represented to have
been valued by you above all price, acquired in her eyes likewise,
a value and a consequence beyond compare, as having been bestowed
by you, at a time and moment so affecting.--Thus inestimable as
appeared to her this sacred gift, she seconded, with the utmost
solicitude, my endeavours to conceal it from Boffuet, and trembled
if his savage eyes but looked towards her.

“Oh, had it but pleased Heaven that this beloved child had been
spared to me, I should, as I often fondly anticipated, have had the
happiness of presenting to you a daughter, whose long residence
with me you would have had no reason to regret, and whose tender
love, and profound respect toward you, you would have recognised in
as high a degree as though she had dwelt with you from her
infancy.

“But such was not to be my fate! ah! the thought that this induces,
again unnerves me; tears gush to my eyes, and scarcely can I
perceive the characters I trace.--Ah, where is the hand of my
Agnes, to subjoin as usual a few lines to my letter; where is that
sweet countenance that peeping over my shoulder, used to smile at a
requisition that made her proud?--where that harmonious voice that
carolled among the mountains, and which often my rapt fancy traces
in the breeze, now in gentle swell, now like the sweet murmuring
sound of an Eolian harp? alas! you have no longer a daughter, I
have no longer a child--I can say no more--but pity, pity, and, if
you can, forgive me.

“CECILE BERTRAND.”

What was now the anguish and dismay of Gabrielle, who with a dreadful impatience had read this long letter to an end, in the vain hope, at every break and each succeeding line, to discover a ray of hope to save her from absolute despair.--But no, her loved Agnes, the hoarded treasure, which, like a miser, she considered that she possessed, although she did not enjoy, which so long she had fondly anticipated to claim, was gone, was vanished! a moment had blighted her best hopes, had rendered vain to the object for whom she had risqued so much, the firm perseverance with which she had endured distress, danger, grief, and mortification; had rendered vain too the reward with which her courage and sufferings had been crowned, in securing the protection she had sought, the protection of a father for her cherished child!--The reflection was too much, and her acute agony burst forth in loud cries, which summoned Angelo, in trembling anticipation of ill, to her apartment.

Gabrielle could only hold out to him the fatal letter; she could not speak: Angelo glanced hastily over it; he read the relation of that terrible disaster which caused her distraction, and forgetting his own grief in the wilder agony of her’s, he made every attempt to soothe and to console her; the idea which pressed heaviest on the mind of Gabrielle, vented itself in the repeated exclamation of, “Oh! if still she lives, what will be her fate, wandering about the world, unprotected, unclaimed?”

Angelo had never seen his child, consequently his affliction was less severe than that of her mother, which for some time appeared insensible to every representation that could be made. He resolved, however, as the only step now to be pursued, to set on foot every possible enquiry, not in England indeed, for there they must have been fruitless, but in Switzerland, on its borders; in Rome, Naples, &c. first writing to Madame Bertrand for an exact description of the person of Agnes, and the dress she wore at her departure; and afterwards writing severally to such of his friends and acquaintances as were resident at these places, intreating them to diffuse enquiry, and make it as general as they possessed the power of doing, but with the exception of concealing such circumstances as it might be both indelicate and unnecessary to divulge in the pursuit.

This then was immediately entered upon, and followed up with a spirit and an interest, such as shewed the high degree of estimation in which Angelo was held by all who had an opportunity of knowing him. This active perseverance too tended in a degree to divert the bitter anguish of Gabrielle, by mingling it with the fever of hope, while its suspense and agitation prevented her from sinking into absolute despair.

All however proved vain; at the end of several months they found themselves at the precise point from which they had sat out, in total and complete ignorance of the fate of their child. Nothing now was left for the parents but the most hopeless and melancholy conjecture, and no alternative but that of trusting to time for some developement of this most mysterious and lamentable occurrence.

END OF VOL. II.