Part 18 (1/2)
”My words seemed to penetrate his heart; his features relaxed, and, before I was aware of his design, he took your mother from me, and laid her gently on a couch. The tide of tenderness had rushed back upon his soul, and every soft and generous feeling transiently revived. He stood over her inanimate form, gazing on her with melancholy fondness till the tears gushed freely from his eyes, and fell on her pallid features. At that moment, as if revived by his solicitude, she half unclosed her eyelids, and a faint glow gave signs of returning life. De Courcy kissed her cold lips, and, murmuring a few words, which did not reach my ear, he gave one last and lingering look, and turned precipitately to leave the room.
”I had retreated from the couch, inexpressibly affected by a scene, which I fondly hoped was the dawn of returning happiness. He stopped, as he was pa.s.sing me, and, wringing my hand with emotion, pointed to your mother, and, in a voice scarcely audible, said,
”You love her, Justine; comfort her,--cherish her, as I would have done,--G.o.d knows how fervently,--had she permitted me. Farewell, my sister, forever.”
Madame de la Tour was too much agitated to proceed, and even Lucie willingly suspended the painful interest to indulge the natural emotions which her parents' history excited. After a brief interval, Madame de la Tour thus continued:
”You must suffer me to pa.s.s rapidly over the remainder of this sad tale, my dear Lucie. It was long before your mother revived to perfect consciousness; and the shock which she had received was only a prelude to still deeper misery. The conduct of de Courcy was too soon explained.
Yielding to the fatal error, that she had given her affections to the Count de ----, in the excitement of his pa.s.sion, he sent a challenge, which was instantly accepted. They met; and the Count was carried, as his attendants supposed, mortally wounded, from the field of contest. De Courcy, however, was spared the commission of that crime; for, though the Count's life was long despaired of, a good const.i.tution prevailed, and he at length recovered.
”De Courcy had made all his arrangements on the preceding night; and, immediately after his interview with your mother, he quitted Paris forever. A letter was left, addressed to her, which strikingly portrayed the disordered state of his mind, and feelingly delineated the strength of his affection, and the bitterness of his disappointment. Robbed, as he believed, of her love, the world had no longer any thing to attach him; and he resolved to bury himself in some retirement, which the vain pa.s.sions of life could never penetrate.
”I will pa.s.s over the agonizing scenes, the months of wretchedness which succeeded this separation, this sudden dissolution of the most sacred and endearing ties. All attempts to discover De Courcy's retreat were unavailing, though it was long before your mother could relinquish the delusive hope, that he would be again restored to her. We returned to my father's house; but there every thing reminded her of happier days, and served to increase her melancholy. Your birth was the only event which reconciled her to life; but her health was then so precarious, we dared not flatter ourselves, that she would be long continued to you. Her physicians recommended change of air, and I accompanied her to a convent on the borders of the Pyrenees, where she had pa.s.sed a few years in early childhood; and she earnestly desired to spend her remaining days within its peaceful walls.
”The good nuns welcomed her to their humble retreat, in the midst of a wild and romantic solitude; and, with unwearied kindness sought to alleviate the sufferings of disease. For three months, I watched unceasingly beside her; a heavenly resignation smoothed the bed of sickness, and her wearied spirit was gently loosed from earth, and prepared for its upward flight. You were the last cord that bound her to a world which she had found so bankrupt in its promises, and this was too strong to be severed, but by the iron grasp of death. As the moment of her departure approached, she expressed a wish to receive the last offices of religion; and a messenger was sent to a neighbouring monastery of Jesuits to request the attendance of a priest. One of the brotherhood soon after entered the little cell, and the nuns, who were chanting around her bed, retired at his approach.
”I retreated un.o.bserved, to a corner of the room, fearing she would not live through the last confession of her blameless life. A dim lamp, from which she was carefully screened, shed a sickly gleam around the apartment; and, even in the deep silence of that awful hour, the low and labored whispers of her voice scarcely reached my ear. Suddenly I was startled by a suppressed, but fervent exclamation from the monk, instantly followed by a faint cry from your mother's lips. I flew to the bed; she had raised herself from the pillow, her arms were extended, as in the act of supplication, and a celestial glow irradiated her dying features. The priest stood in an att.i.tude of eager attention: his cowl was removed; and, judge of my sensations, when I recognized the countenance of De Courcy!”
”My father!” exclaimed Lucie; ”that priest”--
”Wait, and you shall know all;” interrupted Madame de la Tour. ”That priest was indeed your father; he had taken the vows of a rigid order, and Providence guided him to the death-bed of your mother. I pa.s.s over the scene which followed; it is too hallowed for description. Suffice it to say, the solemn confession of that dreadful moment convinced him of her innocence, and her last sufferings were soothed by mutual reconciliation and forgiveness. Your father closed her eyes in their last sleep, and pressing you for an instant to his heart, rushed almost frantic from the convent.
”On the following day, my father sought De Courcy at the monastery, hoping to draw him back to the world by the touching claims of parental love. But he had already left it, never to return; and the superior had sworn to conceal his new abode from every human being. Before leaving the convent, on the night of your mother's death, he confirmed her bequest, which had already given you to my eldest sister, then a rigid Catholic. But my father soon after became a convert to the opinions of the Hugonots, to which we also inclined; and my sister's marriage with M. Rossville confirmed her in those sentiments. She thought proper to educate you in a faith which she had adopted from deliberate conviction; and, as your father had renounced his claims, she of course felt responsible only to her own conscience. Every effort to find him, indeed, continued unavailing; years pa.s.sed away, and by all who had known him he was numbered as with the dead.
”But your father still lived, Lucie, and the recollection of his injured wife forever haunted him; her misery, her untimely death, all weighed heavily on his conscience, and he sought to expiate his crime by a life of austerity, and the most constant and painful acts of self-denial and devotion. Yet the severest penance which he inflicted on himself was to renounce his child, to burst the ties of natural affection, that no earthly claims might interfere with those holy duties to which he had consecrated his future life.”
”Just heavens!” said Lucie, with emotion; ”could such a sacrifice be exacted? dearest aunt, tell me if he yet lives, if I am right”--
”He does live,” interrupted Madame de la Tour; ”he received permission to quit his monastery only to fulfil a more rigid vow, which bound him to a life of unremitting hards.h.i.+p; and, after a severe illness, that for several weeks deprived him of reason, he at length reached this new world, where for nearly twenty years”--
”Father Gilbert!” exclaimed Lucie, starting from her seat in powerful agitation.
”Yes,” said a deep, solemn voice; and the dark form of the priest, who had entered unnoticed, stood beside her; ”my child, behold your father!”
”My father!” repeated Lucie, as she rushed into his extended arms, and sunk weeping upon his bosom.
CHAPTER XXI.
Come, bright Improvement! on the car of Time.
And rule the s.p.a.cious world from clime to clime: Thy handmaid arts shall every wild explore, Trace every wave, and culture every sh.o.r.e.
CAMPBELL.
The tempered beams of a September sun glanced mildly on the quiet sh.o.r.es of the Ma.s.sachusetts, and tinged with mellowed hues the richness of its autumnal scenery. It was on that holy day, which our puritan ancestors were wont to regard emphatically as a ”day of rest;” and nature seemed hushed to a repose as deep and expressive as on that first earthly sabbath when G.o.d finished his creative work, and ”saw that it was very good.” The public wors.h.i.+p of the morning was ended; and the citizens of Boston were dispersing through the different streets and avenues of the town, to their various places of abode. The ma.s.s which issued from the portal of the sanctuary with grave and orderly demeanor, appeared to melt away as one by one, or in household groups, they turned aside to their respective dwellings, till all gradually disappeared, and the streets were again left silent and deserted.
Arthur Stanhope had withdrawn from the crowd, and stood alone on the margin of the bay, which curved its broad basin around the peninsula of Boston. He had received no tidings from St. John's, since the day he quitted it; and, with extreme impatience, he awaited the return of a small trading vessel, which was hourly expected from thence. But his eyes vainly traversed the wide expanse of water; all around it blended with the bright blue sky, and no approaching bark darkened its unruffled surface. Silence reigned over the scene as undisturbed as when the adventurous pilgrims first leaped upon the inhospitable sh.o.r.e. But it was the silence of that hallowed rest which man offered in homage to his creator, not that primeval calm which then brooded over the savage wilderness. Time, since the day on which they took possession, had caused the waste places to ”rejoice, and the desert to blossom as a rose.” The land to which they fled from the storms of persecution had become a pleasant abode; and their interests and affections were detached from the parent country, and fixed on the home of their adoption.
The tide of emigration ceased with the triumph of the puritan cause in England; but the early colonists had already laid deep the broad foundations on which the fabric of civil and religious liberty was reared. Prudence and persevering zeal had conquered the first and most arduous labors of the settlement; and they looked forward with pious confidence to its future prosperity, firmly persuaded that G.o.d had reserved it for the resting place of his chosen people. The rugged soil yielded to the hand of industry, and brought forth its treasures. The sh.o.r.es of the bay no longer presented a scene of wild and solitary magnificence. Forests, which had defied the blasts of ages, were swept away; and, in their stead, fields of waving grain hung their golden ears in the ripening sun, ready for the coming harvest. Flocks and herds grazed in the green pastures which sloped to the water's edge, or collected in meditative groups beneath the scattered trees that spread their ample branches to shelter them. The n.o.ble range of hills which rose beyond in beautiful inequalities, girdling the indented coast, presented a rich and variegated prospect. Broad patches of cultivation appeared in every sheltered nook, and tracts of smooth mown gra.s.s relieved the eye from the midst of sterile wilds. Luxuriant corn-fields fringed the borders of hanging woodlands, which clothed the steep acclivities; and on the boldest summits wide regions were laid bare, where the adventurous axe had broken the dark line of frowning forests, and prepared the way for future culture. Here and there a thriving village burst upon the view, its cl.u.s.tering houses interspersed with gardens and orchards of young fruit trees.