Chapter XXIII

From this period Gabrielle grew daily worse, yet determined to persevere till the power of doing so should utterly forsake her. She disregarded the strong and faithful warnings of nature, which on every exertion, however trifling, appeared on the point of being overpowered, and still pressed and goaded it beyond its capability of endurance. She felt a rapid internal waste, her strength failing, and every indubitable symptom of hastening decay.

The origin of her malady was certainly in the mind; now its baleful effects had communicated to her body in an alarming degree; the least movement fatigued her, to bend over her employment caused a pain at her chest, amounting to suffocation, to walk was an effort scarcely endurable, and her only moments of comparative ease were when for a few hours she allowed herself in a recumbent posture to seek the benefit of repose.

She now became so extremely feeble, and was so frequently obliged to intermit her occupation, that she clearly perceived she must speedily relinquish it altogether. On this subject however she was spared consideration; for having one morning, with infinite pain, dragged her weary limbs as far as the residence of her employer, for the purpose of conveying home the fruits of her labour; the unfeeling being, upon receiving them from her, looked coldly in her languid countenance, and carelessly observed that she seemed going into a consumption, and too ill to work.

The unfortunate Gabrielle, shocked at this cruel remark, shrank back, yet timidly replied, “that such light work could not possibly injure any one;” ill, dying as she was, she thought of the feeble Angelo, and still was anxious to preserve for him the means of procuring a slender subsistence.

“That’s no concern of mine,” replied the man, in answer to her observation, “all I know is, you work too slow for me, and I can’t pay you above half price any longer.”

Gabrielle answered not, for though she despised the brutality of the man, she easily perceived that remonstrance must be lost upon him, and that he was one of those vilely selfish beings who have no other idea than that of trafficking with distress, and think all fair that may be reaped from the urgent necessities of the unfortunate: she did not therefore notice his insinuation, for well she knew the pain and labour which it cost her to compleat what she did for the miserable consideration which she received; to have performed it for any thing beneath that, much less half, as this being had intimated, would, she felt, have been absolutely useless. Stretching forth her fair hand therefore, she accepted the wretched pittance which was her due, and without deigning to utter a syllable, left the shop.

Now was her situation indeed dreadful; she saw that want must speedily overtake them, that nothing could delay its rapid strides; she entered their sad abode with tottering steps, and a heavy heart, almost incapable of further exertion, had she even retained her employment.

Angelo was dismayed at her appearance; she looked the chill image of breathing death, or like some shadowy phantom bearing the false semblance of life and reality.

In tender accents he enquired the cause of her seeming anguish; for though her pallid aspect was familiar to him, there was an expression of distress in it at present, such as, owing to her perpetual exertions to appear cheerful in his presence, he had not for long so evidently perceived.

Her fortitude half succumbing at the sad prospect she now anticipated for Angelo, she looked in his face with the wish to smile, but burst into tears.

“Ah, tell me, beloved Gabrielle, what has happened!” exclaimed Angelo.

“Nothing, nothing, poor Angelo; nothing has happened, but the time is at length arrived--we must starve together!”

Angelo, who had scarcely during this period of distress experienced aught which could be termed privation, and whose mind therefore could not be like Gabrielle’s, familiarised to the idea of want, remained for a moment stupified with horror at her words, and the manner in which she had uttered them.

“Wretch that I am!” at length he exclaimed, striking his forehead with his hand, “wretch that I am, and monster! it is I, who have caused all this! Oh! Gabrielle, Gabrielle, on my head rest your sufferings, on my head will be your death.”

“Not so, Angelo,” faintly cried Gabrielle, “accuse not yourself, neither give way to despair; consider, dear friend, situated as we are, existence is rather painful than pleasing; if you then can with calmness bring your mind to the idea of its surrender, wherefore should we grieve, since passing from this state cannot fail to be a transition to a better? But for you, long, long had I anticipated that era with hope, as now I view it without regret.”

But Angelo possessing not the fortitude of Gabrielle, could not reason like, nor think with her; life, however bitter, was preferable in his estimation to death, the idea of which, as usually to weak minds it is, was terrible to him, viewed with repugnance and dismay. He cast himself in despair upon the ground, and could offer no consolation to her who had so long veiled from his eyes, though fully revealed to her own, the picture of horror now displayed before them. Oppressed by the strong power of imagination, already he fancied the hand of death upon him, and again were the waning powers of the hapless Gabrielle exerted to restore him to firmness and better thoughts.

The first transports of despair over, urged by the pious counsels and elevated reasonings of the half-sainted Gabrielle, Angelo, gradually animated by a slight portion of her divine enthusiasm, acquired the power to contemplate without shrinking the scene before him. He beheld indeed that the best hope now was death bringing a speedy termination of their remediless woes; it was death in its apprehension, rather than the settled thought of death, which appalled him; it was its slow approach which he dreaded--the pang of seeing it advance, that he wished to be spared, and he prayed in his heart that it might overtake him suddenly, and without warning, or that in unconscious slumber, his trembling soul might pass into eternity.

The day at length dawned upon the wretched pair, when not only their means of procuring further subsistence were totally at an end, but when they had not even sustenance to support them through it--not even a single slender meal. This was indeed a day of horror for Angelo--to Gabrielle, of pious resignation, firm hope, and blissful anticipation of a future, better state.

Till now Angelo had resembled the mariner in the storm, who to the last moment indulges hope, nor amid the crashing wreck resigns it, till dismayed he sees rushing towards him the mountainous surge which must envelop him in its fathomless bosom. So till this day, vainly, weakly and unreasonably, had Angelo indulged the fond hope of some unforeseen event, some blest occurrence to turn the tide of fate, and preserve him from the catastrophe, so dreadful and incredible to his mind, of perishing from want.

Yet this fatal day had already dawned, and no symptoms of an approaching delivery had appeared--it advanced unvarying--evening arrived--they gazed at each other in silence--night followed, and as the darkness spread around them, Angelo started from the fixed attitude of despair in which he had been gazing on Gabrielle, and clasping his hands together, exclaimed, “Now indeed have I lost all hope, the crisis of our fate rapidly approaches, God enable us to meet it with courage;” then in a deep gloomy voice he pursued, “Gabrielle, canst thou bear my head upon thy knee? I could sleep--wilt thou then pray, that from the arms of sleep, gently I may pass into those of death!”

“Come then, my dear friend,” cried Gabrielle, “so be it; for myself, I will not sleep--my crimes have been great at the bar of heaven; I would employ my last moments in endeavouring to prepare my guilty soul for its examination, and praying of the Almighty to judge it with mercy.”

Angelo threw himself at her feet, he laid his head upon her lap, and covered his eyes with her hand, as if desirous to shut out for ever all earthly objects, and be spared the _pang_ of death.

Soon as he wished, deep sleep overpowered him. The apartment was in gloomy darkness--yet the inspired soul of Gabrielle saw light--her thoughts ascended to eternity, and revelled in the infinity of space. In the heaven of heavens she fancied she beheld her father, that he looked down smiling upon her, and with outstretched arms, and in a voice which seemed to her rapt ears as the music of the spheres, said, “Come, my Gabrielle, all is forgiven.” In visions like these did she pass the night, sleep visited not her eyes, neither did she wish it. Morning dawned, Angelo started suddenly from his slumber, and springing up, exclaimed in a wild voice, “Oh, my God! do I then still live!”

“Be not impatient, my friend,” said Gabrielle; “but if thou hast strength, bear me to the bed, that I may die there, for of myself I have not power to move.”

Angelo, who was somewhat refreshed by sleep, bore the enfeebled Gabrielle in his arms to the bed, and seated himself beside her. This day the sun shone upon them, but its splendour was mockery; Gabrielle gazed not on it through humility, for she wished not that its cheering beams should exhilarate her soul, or recall her to earthly pleasure, while Angelo closed _his_ eyes upon the brilliant visitant in the bitterness of an impatient despair.

Hour after hour rolled on; the dusk of evening again advanced, a sense of pain from long abstinence began to be acutely felt; their sufferings by the most terrible of deaths were necessarily protracted, and gradually increased, while their termination was contemplated, by the one with an invincible fortitude, by the other with sensations of an indescribable horror that amounted almost to madness!

The light was now such that they could merely distinguish each other. Gabrielle in a faint voice murmured to Angelo, to raise her head from the pillow. Trembling with anguish and alarm, he obeyed, conceiving from the tone of her voice that her last moments were approaching. He supported her in his arms, she rested her head upon his shoulder, and gazed on him, though without speaking, with a grateful placid smile. She laid her spread hand upon her heart, her eyes of celestial blue were raised upwards with an animated expression, her countenance was that of a saint inspired with a holy fervour, while her soul seemed gently passing like a breath from earth to heaven!

Angelo looked upon her with the wild aspect of moody terrible despair, on perceiving that he must still survive, yet with an anxious wish that her fleeting breath might be delayed till his might mingle with it, and their souls together pass the threshold of mortal life; for he dreaded the thought of dying as it were unprotected in his last moments, so tremblingly did he hang on Gabrielle, even in death.

While thus they remained in each other’s arms, a slight noise was heard at their door. Gabrielle, whose thoughts had already parted from earth, wished not that they should be recalled to it; she desired to die; and to return to life and to the world, would have been a painful effort; she heeded not therefore the noise, either by look or movement.

Mean time it was repeated, but with increased violence. Angelo started involuntarily; it continued still louder, for their door had been secured, that no one might intrude upon or witness their anguish and distress. The attention of Gabrielle was dragged again to earth, she made a faint movement, Angelo laid her head gently upon the pillow, and fast as his debilitated limbs would allow, approached the door, opened it, and in a voice almost inarticulate from passion struggling with weakness, he cried, “Who dare intrude here! and interrupt our last moments!” at the same time staring wildly upon the intruder, and holding the door in his hand, as if unwilling he should enter.

“D’Albini!” cried a voice that recalled itself to the mind of Angelo, “I perceive you know me not; I have, however, letters and papers of consequence for you, which I could deliver into your hands alone: with the utmost difficulty, after having been several days in search of you, I have been so fortunate as to trace you; and if I judge aright, you will find in the packet I bring something to reconcile you to my apparently unwelcome intrusion.”

Angelo now perfectly recognised the voice of an old associate, but his travelled heart shrunk from contact with him, and in faltering accents he replied, his native pride still operating, “This is no place for you, it is the chamber of misery, of death!--I will dispense with your entrance, you can have no papers, no letters that _now_ concern me.”

“Pardon me,” returned Fitzarden, “and allow me a word only, to convince you to the contrary. Ellesmere is no more, he expired by a wound received in a duel from his most _intimate friend_, who had attempted to seduce his mistress: no sooner was he given to understand that he could not survive, than he sent for me, and reverting to his unfortunate transaction with yourself, the whole of which he had before related to me, he confessed that in that awful moment he felt the bitterest remorse, from the reflection of having, as he feared, completely ruined you, since you had suddenly vanished, no one knew whither; and that he could not die easy, unless he made you restitution of the whole of what he had obtained from you on that memorable night, and at every former period. “Promise me, Fitzarden,” he added, “that you will not neglect my dying request, that you will not rest till you have discovered his retreat, and re-instated him in the full possession of his own. I faithfully promised; he lived to see the requisite instrument executed, which was to confirm you in the possession of your right, and then expired in comparative tranquillity--though deeply deploring his manifold errors, yet in the hope that he had retrieved at least the effects of one most baleful.” Fitzarden concluded; Angelo endeavoured to speak, hope had dawned upon his soul, and with it had returned, more strongly than ever, the desire of life.

The attempt, however, that he had made to speak, from the confusion of ideas that pressed upon his mind, and his extreme debility, overpowered him. He staggered towards the bed, where the silent Gabrielle still lay; he essayed to express himself to her, but could not; the words evaporated in a hollow murmur, and he sunk exhausted on the bed. Fitzarden, now considerably alarmed, called aloud for lights and some assistance.

Angelo was presently restored, though appearing in a state of the utmost debility; but for the unhappy Gabrielle, her last hour seemed to have arrived, and it was considered almost a forlorn hope to summon the immediate aid of a physician.

Without making enquiry, the situation of his former gay companion was sufficiently evident to Fitzarden; he clearly perceived that he was reduced to the most abject distress, and as he cast his eyes around the cold desolate apartment, he could not avoid contrasting it in his mind with the sumptuous dwellings in which formerly he had been accustomed to behold him. The view of the dreadful change produced by a fatal indiscretion, struck a salutary terror to the heart of the young man, and he started to reflect that his own habits were at this period such precisely as D’Albini’s had long been: thus reverting to self, and what might be his own fate, he felt his commiseration increase for the unhappy beings before him.

A physician now arrived, and was conducted instantly to Gabrielle; he felt her pulse, looked in her death-like countenance, on which the finger of want had imprinted traces deep as those of sorrow, and pronounced with an unusual delicacy and sincerity, that her malady was the result of intense exhaustion, and that nourishment, not medicine, was alone capable of restoring her.

At this declaration, however compassionately veiled, that the tender and angelic Gabrielle was expiring from want, Angelo, unable to restrain his acute emotion, burst into tears. Such was the anguish of his feelings, that but for immediate assistance he would have sunk into a state worse far than that from which he had just been recovered.

Despair and eternal repining had made on his countenance a havoc almost equal to that which want and hidden anguish had made in that of Gabrielle; and again as Fitzarden pressed him to take some wine, he gazed upon his sunken cheeks, and hollow eyes, and could not avoid remembering the gay hours when, glowing in the bloom of health and careless vivacity, they had pledged each other in repeated goblets, not, as now, to restore exhausted nature, but to sink it rather in enfeebling sensuality, or, plunging into the vice of prodigal excess, to fit themselves for pursuits that sober reason could not have tolerated.

Some exhilarating cordial having been administered to Gabrielle, she once more opened on the light her faintly beaming eyes.--Angelo supported her in his trembling arms; while Fitzarden, in whose soul the scene before him awakened feelings which he was unconscious of possessing, and whose mind was impressed with the most delicate respect for Gabrielle, joined his entreaties to those of Angelo, and earnestly besought her to take some nourishment.

Gabrielle found herself compelled to yield; the cup of existence was again presented to her lips, she wished not to taste of it, for her sad mind foreboded that as heretofore the sweets that it might contain, would bear no proportion to the bitter with which they would be mingled; yet to repel life was equal to the crime of seeking death; she remembered that she was the creature of her Creator, and as her piety had given her the resignation to die, it now inspired her with the fortitude to live.

She recovered by degrees; with her Angelo recovered likewise, for he saw that for this time he should be spared the remorse of beholding her die for _him_. His was not a mind to anticipate distant events, neither to dive deeply into remote origins, or causes; the simple position of not having to accuse himself at this juncture of the death of her who had sacrificed so much for him, who had famished that he might feast--to be spared a reflection so bitter, so accusing, was of itself sufficient to exhilarate his soul, while the idea, then shining forth in added lustre, of his fair future prospects, conveyed a feeling of renovated bliss. Fitzarden would not leave them till he beheld them in a state widely different from that in which he had found them; Angelo, ever easily depressed, now animated to a pitch of extravagance, while a feeling of pleasure at _his_ joy, chastened by her stronger reason, shone through the lovely mind of Gabrielle, as the mild light of the soul, or like a tempered sun-beam diffusing around a soft and tender brilliancy. Fitzarden promised to return on the following day, but previous to his visiting them, to arrange for their reception an abode somewhat different to that which they at present occupied.

“But was not this good enough to _die_ in!” observed Gabrielle to Fitzarden, as he rose to depart.

“I know not that,” answered Fitzarden, who involuntarily gazed on her with admiration; “for such a being as _you_ it was not even good enough to die in; yet indeed,” added he, “virtues like yours are of themselves independent, requiring neither living pomp nor mausoleum!”

“Who talks of death!” cried Angelo, with a laugh,--“it must be life, beloved Gabrielle, long and happy life, for both you and me!”

The feelings of Gabrielle told her a less flattering tale, but she faintly smiled in compliment to the wild hopes of the sanguine Angelo.