The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 3 of 5). Burney Fanny
enquiry, so earnest, so eager, so ardent, that neither of them seemed to have any sensation left of self, from excess of solicitude for the other, till Ellis, looking towards the little grave, said, 'Ah! que ce ne soit plus question de moi?'6
'Ah, oui, mon amie,' answered Gabriella, 'ton histoire, tes malheurs, ne peuvent jamais être aussi terribles, aussi dechirants que les miens! tu n'as pas encore eprouvé le bonheur d'être mère – comment aurois-tu, donc, eprouvé, le plus accablant des malheurs? Oh! ce sont des souffrances qui n'ont point de nom; des douleurs qui rendent nulles toutes autres, que la perte d'un Etre pûr comme un ange, et tout à soi!'7
The fond embraces, and fast flowing tears of Ellis, evinced the keen sensibility with which she participated in the sorrows of this afflicted mother, whom she strove to draw away from the fatal spot; reiterating the most urgent enquiries upon every other subject, to attract her, if possible, to yet remaining, to living interests. But these efforts were utterly useless. 'Restons, restons où nous sommes!' she cried: 'c'est ici que je te parlerai; c'est ici que je t'écôuterai; ici, où je passe les seuls momens que j'arrache à la misere, et au travail. Ne crois pas que de pleurer est ce qu'il y a le plus à craindre! Oh! qu'il ne t'arrive jamais de savoir que de pleurer, même sur le tombeau de tout ce qui vous est le plus cher, est un soulagement, un dèlice, auprès du dur besoin de travailler, la mort dans le cœur, pour vivre, pour exister, lorsque la vie a perdu toutes ses charmes!'8
Seated then upon the monument which was nearest to the little grave, Gabriella related the principal events of her life, since the period of their separation. These, though frequently extraordinary, sometimes perilous, and always touchingly disastrous, she recounted with a rapidity almost inconceivable; distinctly, nevertheless, marking the several incidents, and the courage with which she had supported them: but when, these finished, she entered upon the history of the illness that had preceded the death of her little son, her voice tremblingly slackened its velocity, and unconsciously lowered its tones; and, far from continuing with the same quickness or precision, every circumstance was dwelt upon as momentous; every recollection brought forth long and endearing details; every misfortune seemed light, put in the scale with his loss; every regret seemed concentrated in his tomb!
Six o'clock, and seven, had tolled unheeded, during this afflicting, yet soothing recital; but the eighth hour striking, when the tumult of sorrow was subsiding into the sadness of grief, the sound caught the ear of Gabriella, who, hastily rising, exclaimed, 'Ah, voilà que je suis encore susceptible de plaisir, puisque ta société m'a fait oublier les tristes et penibles devoirs, qui m'appellent à des tâches qui – à peine – m'empêchent de mourir de faim!'9
At these words, all the fortitude hitherto sustained by Juliet, – for the borrowed name of Ellis will now be dropt, – utterly forsook her. Torrents of tears gushed from her eyes, and lamentations, the bitterest, broke from her lips. She could bear, she cried, all but this; all but beholding the friend of her heart, the daughter of her benefactress, torn from the heights of happiness and splendour; of merited happiness, of hereditary splendour; to be plunged into such depths of distress, and overpowered with anguish.
'Ah! que je te reconnois bien à ce trait!' cried Gabriella, while a tender smile tried to force its way through her tears: 'cette ame si noble! si inebralable pour elle-même, si douce, si compatissante pour tout autre! que de souvenirs chers et touchans ne se presentent, à cet instant, à mon cœur! Ma chère Julie! il est bien vrai, donc, que je te vois, que je te retrouve encore! et, en toi, tout ce qú'il y a de plus aimable, de plus pûr, et de plus digne! Comment ai-je pû te revoir, sans retrouver la felicité? Je me sens presque coupable de pouvoir t'embrasser, – et de pleurer encore!'10
Forcing herself, then, from the fatal but cherished spot, she must hasten, she said, to her daily labour, lest night should surprise her, without a roof to shelter her head. But Juliet now detained her; clung and wept round her neck, and could not even endeavour to resign herself to the keen woes, and deplorable situation of her friend. She had come over, she said, buoyed up with the exquisite hope of joining the darling companion of her earliest youth; of sharing her fate, and of mitigating her hardships: but this softening expectation was changed into despondence, in discovering her, thus, a prey to unmixt calamity; not alone bowed down by the general evils of revolutionary events; punished for plans in which she had borne no part, and for crimes of which she had not even any knowledge; – not only driven, without offence, or even accusation, from prosperity and honours, to exile, to want, to misery, and to labour; but suffering, at the same time, the heaviest of personal afflictions, in the immediate loss of a darling child; the victim, in all probability, to a melancholy change of life, and to sudden privation of customary care and indulgence!
The task of consolation seemed now to devolve upon Gabriella: the feelings of Juliet, long checked by prudence, by fortitude, by imperious necessity; and kept in dignified but hard command; having once found a vent, bounded back to nature and to truth, with a vivacity of keen emotion that made them nearly uncontrollable. Nature and truth, – which invariably retain an elastic power, that no struggles can wholly subdue; and that always, however curbed, however oppressed, – lie in wait for opportunity to spring back to their rights. Her tears, permitted, therefore, at length, to flow, nearly deluged the sad bosom of her friend.
'Helas, ma Julie! sœur de mon ame!' cried Gabriella, 'ne t'abandonne pas à la douleur pour moi! mais parles moi, ma tendre amie, paries moi de ma mère! Où l'a tu quitte? Et comment? Et à quelle epoque? – La plus digne, la plus cherie des mères! Helas! eloignée de nous deux, comment saura-t-elle se resigner á tant de malheurs?'11
Juliet uttered the tenderest assurances, that she had left the Marchioness well; and had left her by her own injunctions, to join her darling daughter; to whom, by a conveyance that had been deemed secure, she had previously written the plan of the intended journey; with a desire that a few lines of direction, relative to their meeting, under cover to L.S., to be left till called for, might be sent to the post-offices both of Dover and Brighthelmstone; as it was not possible to fix at which spot Juliet might land. The initials L.S. had been fixed upon by accident.
Filial anxiety, now, took place of maternal sufferings, and Gabriella could only talk of her mother; demanding how she looked, and how she supported the long separation, the ruinous sacrifices, and the perpetual alarms, to which she must have been condemned since they had parted; expressing her own surprise, that she had borne to dwell upon any other subject than this, which now was the first interest of her heart; yet ceasing to wonder, when she contemplated the fatal spot where her meeting with Juliet had taken place.
Each, now, deeply lamented the time and consolation that had been lost, from their mutual ignorance of each other's abode. Juliet related her fruitless search upon arriving in London; and Gabriella explained, that, during three lingering, yet ever regretted months, she had watched over her dying boy, without writing a single line; to spare her absent friends the knowledge of her suspensive wretchedness. Since the irreparable certainty which had followed, she had sent two letters to her beloved mother, with her address at Brighthelmstone; but both must have miscarried, as she had received no answer. That Juliet had not traced her in London was little wonderful, as, to elude the curiosity excited by a great name, she had passed, in setting out for Brighthelmstone, by a common one. And to that change, joined to one so similar on the part of Juliet, it must have been owing that they had never heard of each other, though residents of the same place. Juliet, nevertheless, was astonished, in defiance of all alteration of attire and appearance, that she had not instantly recognized the air and form of her elegant and high bred Gabriella. But, equally unacquainted with her indigence, which was the effect of sundry cruel accidents, and with the loss of her child; no expectation was awakened of finding her either in so distressed or so solitary a condition. Now, however, Juliet continued, that fortunately, though, alas! not happily, they had met, they would part no more. Juliet was fully at liberty to go whithersoever her friend would lead, the hope of obtaining tidings of that beloved friend, having alone kept her stationary thus long at Brighthelmstone; where she could now leave the address of Gabriella, at
'Ah! – upon me can you, yet, bestow a thought?'
'True, my dear friend, true! thy history, thy misfortunes, can never be terrible, never be lacerating like mine! Thou hast not yet known the bliss of being a mother; – how, then, canst thou have experienced the most overwhelming of calamities! a suffering that admits of no description! a woe that makes all others seem null – the loss of a being pure, spotless as a cherub – and wholly our own!'
'Here, here let us stay! 'tis here I can best speak to thee! 'tis here, I can best listen; – here, where I pass every moment that I can snatch from penury and labour! Think not that to weep is what is most to be dreaded; oh never mayst thou learn, that to weep – though upon the tomb of all that has been most dear to thee upon earth, is a solace, is a feeling of softness, nay of pleasure, compared with the hard necessity of toiling, when death has seized upon the very heart, merely to breathe, to exist, after life has lost all its charms!'
'See, if I am not still susceptible of pleasure! Thy society has made me forget the sad and painful duties that call me hence, to tasks that snatch me, – with difficulty, – from perishing by famine!'
'Ah, how I know thee by that trait! thy soul so noble! so firm in itself; so soft, so commiserating for every other! what tender, what touching recollections present themselves at this instant to my heart! Dearest Juliet! is it, then, indeed no dream, that I have found – that I behold thee again? and, in thee, all that is most exemplary, most amiable, and most worthy upon earth! How is it I can recover thee, and not recover happiness? I almost feel as if I were criminal, that I can embrace thee, – yet weep on!'
'Alas, my Juliet! sister of my soul! abandon not myself to sorrow for me! but speak to me, my tender friend, speak to me of my mother! where didst thou leave her? And how? And at what time? The most precious of mothers! Alas! separated from us both, – how will she be able to support such accumulation of misfortunes!'