Ernest Linwood; or, The Inner Life of the Author

by Caroline Lee Hentz

How could he wound the spotless ears of Rosalie by the tale of his brother's guilt and shame? He had never spoken to her of his existence, the subject was so exquisitely painful, for he believed himself for ever separated from him, and why should his blasted name cast a shadow over the heaven of his domestic happiness?

Alter having raised his miserable brother from the gulf of degradation in which he had plunged, and given him the means of establishing himself in some honorable situation, which he promised to seek, he returned to find his home occupied by strangers, his wife and child fled, his happiness wrecked, and his peace destroyed. The deluded and half frantic Therésa, believing him to be her husband, appealed to him, by the memory of their former love and wedded felicity, to forgive the steps she had taken that she might assert the claims of her deserted boy. Maddened by the loss of the wife whom he adored, he became for the time a maniac; and so terrible was his indignation and despair, the unhappy victim of his brother's perfidy fled trembling and dismayed from his presence.

In the calmer moments that succeeded the first paroxysms of his agony, Henry thought of his brother and of the extraordinary resemblance they bore to each other, and the mystery which frenzied passion had at first veiled from his eyes was partially revealed to his understanding. Could he then have seen her, and could she prove that she was the wife of Gabriel, he would have protected her with a brother's care and tenderness. But his first thought was for Rosalie,—the young, the beloved, the deceived, the fugitive Rosalie, of whose flight no clue could be discovered, no trace be found. The servants could throw no light on the mystery, for she had left in the darkness and silence of night. They only knew that Peggy disappeared at the same time, and was probably her companion. This circumstance afforded a faint relief to Henry's distracted mind, for he knew Peggy's physical strength and moral courage, as well as her remarkable attachment to his lovely and gentle wife. But whither had they gone? The natural supposition was, that she would throw herself on the protection of her step-mother, as the only person on whom she had any legitimate claims,—unkind as she had formerly been. He immediately started for the embattled walls of Fortress Monroe,—but before his departure, he put advertisements in every paper, which, if they met her eye, she could not fail to understand. Alas! they never reached the gray cottage imbosomed in New England woods!

In vain he sought her in the wave-washed home of her childhood. He met with no sympathy from the slighted and jealous step-mother, who had destroyed the only link that bound them together, the name of her father. She had married again, and disowned all interest in the daughter of her former husband. She went still further, and wreaked her vengeance on St. James for the wounds he had inflicted on her vanity, by aspersing and slandering the innocent Rosalie. He left her in indignation and disgust, and wandered without guide or compass, like another Orpheus in search of the lost Eurydice. Had he known Peggy's native place, he might have turned in the right direction, but he was ignorant of every thing but her name and virtues. At length, weary and desponding, he resolved to seek in foreign lands, and in devotion to his art, oblivion of his sorrows. Just before his departure he met his brother, and told him of the circumstances which banished him from home and country. Gabriel, whose love for Therésa had been the one golden vein in the dark ore of his nature, was awakened to bitter, though short-lived remorse, not only for the ruin he brought on her, but the brother, whose fraternal kindness had met with so sad a requital. Touched by the exhibition of his grief and self-reproach, Henry committed to his keeping a miniature of Rosalie, of which he had a duplicate, that he might be able to identify her, and Gabriel promised, if he discovered one trace of his wife and child, that he would write to his brother and recall him.

They parted. Henry went to Italy, where images of ideal loveliness mingled with, though they could not supplant, the taunting memories of his native clime. As an artist, and as a man, he was admired, respected, and beloved; and he found consolation, though not happiness. The one great sorrow of his life fell like a mountain shadow over his heart; but it darkened its brightness without chilling its warmth. He was still the sympathizing friend of humanity, the comforter of the afflicted, the benefactor of the poor.

In the mean time Gabriel continued his reckless and dissolute course, sometimes on land, sometimes on sea, an adventurer, a speculator, a gambler, and a wretch. Destiny chanced to throw him into the vortex of corruption boiling in the heart of New York, when I went there, the bride of Ernest. He had seen me in the street, before he met me at the theatre; and, struck by my resemblance to the miniature which his brother had given him, he inquired and learned my name and history, as well as the wealth and rank of my husband. Confirmed in his suspicion that I was the child of Rosalie, he resolved to fill his empty pockets with my husband's gold, by making me believe that he was my father, and appealing to my filial compassion. Not satisfied with his success, he forged the note, whose discovery was followed by detection, conviction, imprisonment, and despair.

The only avenue to his seared and hardened heart had been found by the son of Therésa, coming to him like a messenger from heaven, in all his purity, excellence, and filial piety, not to avenge a mother's wrongs, but to cheer and illumine a guilty father's doom. His brother, too, seemed sent by Providence at this moment, that he might receive the daughter whom, from motives of the basest selfishness, he had claimed as his own.

When I first saw my father at the Falls, he had just returned to his native land, in company with Julian, the young artist. Urged by one of those irresistible impulses which may be the pressure of an angel's hand, his spirit turned to the soil where he now firmly believed the ashes of his Rosalie reposed. He and Julian parted on their first arrival, met again on the morning of our departure, and travelled together through some of the glowing and luxuriant regions of the West. After Julian left him to visit Grandison Place, he lingered amid scenes where nature revelled in all its primeval grandeur and original simplicity, sketching its boldest and most attractive features, till, God-directed, he came to the city over which the memory of his brief wedded life trembled like a misty star throbbing on the lonely heart of night. Hearing that a St. James was in the dungeons of the Tombs, a convicted forger, he at once knew that it must be his brother. There he sought him, and learned from him that the child of Rosalie lived, though Rosalie was a more.

As simple as sad, was the solution of my life's mystery.

Concealment was the fatal source of our sorrows. Even the noble Henry St. James erred in concealing his twin brotherhood, though woe and disgrace tarnished the once golden link. Rosalie and Therésa both erred, in not giving their children their father's name, though they believed it accursed by perjury and guilt.