Ernest Linwood Part 37

I should make too conspicuous an appearance in the park, in my elegant cloak, trimmed with costly ermine and bonnet shaded with snowy plumes. I would be recognized at once, for the bride of the jealous Ernest was an object of interest and curiosity. To obviate this difficulty, I purchased a large gray shawl, of soft, yielding material, that completely covered my cloak; a thick, green veil, through which my features could not be discerned, and walked with rapid steps through the hurrying crowd that thronged the side-walks towards the ---- Park.

It was too early an hour for the usual gathering of children and nurses.

Indeed, at this cold, wintry season, the warm nursery was a more comfortable and enticing place.

The park presented a dreary, desolate aspect. No fountain tossed up its silvery waters, falling in rainbows back to earth. The leafless branches of the trees shone coldly in the thin glazing of frostwork and creaked against each other, as the bleak wind whistled through them. Here and there, a ruddy-faced Irish woman, wrapped in a large blanket-shawl, with a coa.r.s.e straw bonnet blown back from her head, breasted the breeze with a little trotting child, who took half a dozen steps to one of hers, tugging hard at her hand. It was not likely I should meet a fashionable acquaintance at this early hour; and if I did, I was shrouded from recognition.

I had scarcely pa.s.sed the revolving gate, before I saw a gentleman approaching from the opposite entrance with rapid and decided steps. He was tall and stately, and had that unmistakable air of high-breeding which, being once acquired, can never be entirely lost. As he came nearer, I could distinguish the features of the stranger; features which, seen by daylight, exhibited still more plainly the stamp of recklessness, dissipation, and vice. They had once been handsome, but alas! alas! was this the man who had captivated the hearts of two lovely women, and then broken them? Where was the fascination which had enthralled alike the youthful Rosalie and the impa.s.sioned Theresa? Was this, indeed, the once gallant and long beloved St. James?

"You have come," he exclaimed, eagerly grasping my hand and pressing it in his. "I bless you, my daughter,--and may G.o.d forever bless you for listening to a father's prayer!"

"I have come," I answered, in low, trembling accents, for indescribable agitation almost choked my utterance,--"but I can not,--dare not linger.

It was cruel in you to bind me to secrecy. Had it not been for the mother,--whose dying words"--

"And is she dead,--the wronged,--the angel Rosalie? How vainly I have sought her,--and thee, my cherub little one! My sufferings have avenged her wrongs."

He turned away, and covered his face with his handkerchief. I saw his breast heave with suppressed sobs. It is an awful thing to see a strong man weep,--especially when the tears are wrung by the agonies of remorse. I felt for him the most intense pity,--the most entire forgiveness,--yet I recoiled from his approach,--I shrunk from the touch of his dry and nervous hand. I felt polluted, degraded, by the contact.

"My mother told me, if I ever met you, to give you not only her forgiveness, but her blessing. She blessed you, for the sufferings that weaned her from earth and chastened her spirit for a holier and happier world. She bade me tell you, that in spite of her wrongs she had never ceased to love you. In obedience to her dying will, I have shown you a daughter's duty so far as to meet you here, and learn what I can do for one placed in the awful circ.u.mstances in which you declare yourself to be. Speak quickly and briefly, for on every pa.s.sing moment the whole happiness of my life hangs trembling."

"Only let me see your face for the few moments we are together, that I may carry its remembrance to my grave,--that face so like your mother's."

"What can I do?" I exclaimed, removing the veil as I spoke,--for there was no one near; and I could not refuse a pet.i.tion so earnest. "Oh, tell me quickly what I can do. What dreadful doom is impending over you?"

"You are beautiful, my child,--very, very beautiful," said he; while his dark, sunken eyes seemed to burn me with the intensity of their gaze.

"Talk not to me of beauty, at a moment like this!" I exclaimed, stamping my foot in the agony of my impatience. "I cannot, will not stay, unless to aid you. Your presence is awful! for it reminds me of my mother's wrongs,--my own clouded birth."

"I deserve this, and far more," he cried, in tones of the most object humility. "Oh, my child, I am brought very low;--I am a lost and ruined man. Maddened by your mother's desertion, I became reckless,--desperate.

I fled from the home another had usurped. I became the prey of villains, who robbed me of my fortune at the gaming table. Another, and another step;--lower and lower still I sunk. I cannot tell you the story of my ruin. Enough, I am lost! The sword of the violated law gleams over my head. Every moment it may fall. I dare not remain another day in this city. I dare not stay in my native land. If I do, yonder dismal Tombs will be my life-long abode."

"Fly, then,--fly this moment," I cried. "What madness! to linger in the midst of danger and disgrace!"

"Alas! my daughter, I am penniless. I had laid aside a large sum, sufficient for the emergency; but a wretch robbed me of all, only two nights since. Humiliating as it is, I must turn beggar to my child. Your husband is a Dives; I, the Lazarus, who am perishing at his gate."

"Ask him. He is n.o.ble and generous. He will fill your purse with gold, and aid you to escape. Go to him at once. You know not his princely heart."

"Never! On you alone I depend. I will not ask a favor of man, to save my soul from perdition. Girl! have you no power over the wealth that must be rusting in your coffers? Are you not trusted with the key to your household treasures?"

"Do you think I would take his gold clandestinely?" I asked, glowing with indignation, and recoiling from the expression of his eager, burning eye. We were walking slowly during this exciting conversation; and, cold as it was, the moisture gathered on my brow. "Here is a purse, given me for a holier purpose. Take it, and let me go."

"Thank you,--bless you, my child! but this will only relieve present necessity. It will not carry me in safety to distant climes. Bless you!

but take it back, take it back. I can only meet my doom!"

"I _will_ go to my husband!" I exclaimed with sudden resolution; "I _will_ tell him all, and he, and he alone shall aid you. I will not wrong him by acting without his knowledge. You have no right to endanger my life-long peace. You have destroyed my mother; must her child too be sacrificed?"

"I see there is but one path of escape," he cried, s.n.a.t.c.hing a pistol from his breast, and turning the muzzle to his heart. "Fool, dolt, idiot that I am! I dreamed of salvation from a daughter's hand, but I have forfeited a father's name, a father's affection. Gabriella, you might save me, but I blame you not. Do not curse me, though I fill a felon's grave;--better that than the dungeon--the scaffold."

"What would you do?" I whispered hoa.r.s.ely, seizing his arm with spasmodic grasp.

"Die, before I am betrayed."

"I will not betray you; what sum will suffice for your emergency? Name it."

"As many thousands as there are hundreds there," pointing to the purse.

"Good heavens!"

"Gabriella, you must have jewels worth a prince's ransom; you had diamonds last night on your neck and arms that would redeem your father's life. Each gem is but a drop of water in the deep sea of _his_ riches. His uncle was a modern Cr[oe]sus, and he, his sole heir."

"How know you this?" I asked.

"Every one knows it. The rich are the cities on the hill-tops, seen afar off. You hesitate,--you tremble. Keep your diamonds,--but remember they will eat like burning coals into your flesh."

Fierce and deadly pa.s.sions gleamed from his eye. He clenched the pistol so tight that his nails turned of a purplish blue.

No one was near us, to witness a scene so strange and appalling. The thundering sounds of city life were rolling along the great thoroughfare of the metropolis, now rattling, shrill, and startling, then roaring, swelling, and subsiding again, like the distant surf; but around us, there was silence and s.p.a.ce. In the brief moment that we stood face to face, my mind was at work with preternatural activity. I remembered that I had a set of diamonds,--the bridal gift of Mrs. Linwood,--a superb and costly set, which I had left a week previous in the hands of the jeweller, that he might remedy a slight defect in the clasps. Those which I wore at the theatre, and which had attracted his insatiate eye, were the gift of Ernest. He had clasped them around my neck and arms, as he was about to lead me to the altar, and hallowed the offering with a bridegroom's kiss. I could have given my heart's blood sooner than the radiant pledge of wedded faith and love.

I could go to the jewellers,--get possession of the diamonds, and thus redeem my guilty parent from impending ruin. Then, the waves of the Atlantic would roll between us, and I would be spared the humiliation and agony of another scene like this. I told him to follow me at a short distance; that I would get the jewels; that he could receive them from me in the street in the midst of the jostling crowd without observation.

"It is the last time," I cried, "the last time I ever act without my husband's knowledge. I have obeyed my mother, I have fulfilled my duty, at the risk of all my soul holds dear. And now, as you hope to meet hereafter her, who, if angels can sorrow, still mourns over your transgressions, quit the dark path you are now treading, and devote your future life to penitence and prayer. Oh! by my mother's wrongs and woes, and by my own, by the mighty power of G.o.d and a Saviour's dying love, I entreat you to repent, forsake your sins, and live, live, forever more."

Tears gushed from my eyes and checked my utterance. Oh! how sad, how dreadful, to address a father thus.

"Gabriella!" he exclaimed, "you are an angel. Pray for me, pray for me, thou pure and holy being, and forgive the sins that you say are not beyond the reach of G.o.d's mercy, I dare not, not here,--yet for one dear embrace, my child, I would willingly meet the tortures of the prison-house and the scaffold."

I recoiled with horror at the suggestion. I would not have had his arms around me for worlds. I could not call him _father_. I pitied,--wept for him; but I shrunk with loathing from his presence. Dropping my veil over my face, I turned hastily, gained the street, pressed on through the moving ma.s.s without looking to the right or left, till I reached the shop where my jewels were deposited,--took them without waiting for explanation or inquiry, hurried back till I met St. James, slipped the casket into his eager hand, and pressed on without uttering a syllable.

Never shall I forget the expression of his countenance as he received the casket. The fierce, wild, exulting flash of his dark sunken eye, whose reddish blackness seemed suddenly to ignite and burn like heated iron. There was something demoniac in its glare, and it haunted me in my dreams long, long afterwards.

I did not look back, but hurried on, rejoicing that rapidity of motion was too customary in Broadway to attract attention. Before I arrived at the place of meeting, I wished to divest myself of the shawl which I had used as a disguise; and it was no difficult matter, where poverty is met in all its forms of wretchedness and woe.

"Take this, my good woman," said I, throwing the soft gray covering over the shoulders of a thin, shivering, haggard looking female, on whose face chill penury was written in withering lines. "You are cold and suffering."

"Bless your sweet face. G.o.d Almighty bless you!" was wafted to my ears, in tremulous accents,--for I did not stop to meet her look of wonder, grat.i.tude, and ecstasy. I did not deserve her blessing; but the garment sheltered her meagre frame, and she went on her way rejoicing.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

When I entered Mrs. Brahan's drawing-room, I was in a kind of somnambulism,--moving, walking, seeing, yet hardly conscious of what I was doing, or what was pa.s.sing around me. She was the president of the a.s.sociation, and a very charming woman.

"We feared we were not going to see you this morning," she said, glancing at a French clock, which showed the lateness of the hour; "but we esteem it a privilege to have you with us, even for a short time. We know," she added, with a smile, "what a sacrifice we impose on Mr.

Linwood, when we deprive him of your society."

"Yes!" cried a sprightly young lady, with whom I was slightly acquainted, "we all consider it an event, when we can catch a glimpse of Mrs. Linwood. Her appearance at the theatre last night created as great a sensation as would a new constellation in the zodiac."

These allusions to my husband's exclusive devotion brought the color to my cheeks, and the soft, warm air of the room stole soothingly round me.

I tried to rouse myself to a consciousness of the present, and apologized for my delay with more ease and composure than I expected.