CHAPTER XXXI.
Mr. Glentworth contrived to arrive in the evening at the house of Dr. Parizzi, where the little metamorphose of Isabella was soon effected; that of her husband was more difficult. But, as Count Riccardini had been obliged to go to his own seat, and the marchese had never seen him, it was less material; at this time, he was looking in the eyes of the doctor so much altered for the worse, many old friends might see, yet not recognize in him, the once-admired Englishman.
Poor Isabella had formed such an exalted idea of the beauty and accomplishments of her cousin, from the description her husband had given, that partly from fear of her, and partly from consciousness of deception, it was with the utmost difficulty she could allow herself to be presented. This once over, she became forgetful of all that was unpleasant in her situation. She could not fear the rivalship of beauty in the pale, sharp features of the invalid before her, nor could she doubt the perfect kindness and goodwill of one who took the opportunity of the first moment they were alone, to draw her closely to her heart, call her her "dear, dear cousin, the beloved of her own beloved, in days that were gone for ever."
"You see me, Margaret," said she, "and you are satisfied; much as your pity may be moved and your sympathy awakened, you know that the woman so soon to resign existence, the child of error and weakness so soon to stand before her God, meditates no harm to you, or would for a single moment draw your husband from his allegiance. No, no; far rather would she strengthen the bonds which bind you, and which alone can bestow on your husband the wife of which he was so cruelly deprived, under impressions as blameless as they were deplorable in their inflictions."
"Surely," said Isabella, eagerly, and totally forgetting herself in her sympathies, "there are bounds to our duties even to our parents;—if your religious sentiments resembled your father's, and were more liberal than my aunt's, ought you not to have rewarded poor Glentworth, even at the risk of disobeying your mother? My dear sister, Louisa, ventured to do this, and is happy; my mamma was soon reconciled, and."
"Your mamma, so far as I could ever hear, is a different woman to mine; she was all tenderness, all goodness; her scruples were high and holy ones, and she so nearly persuaded me that she was right, I believed myself wrong in all that remained deficient in my conviction. A near approach to the grave makes me doubt my own judgment, and in one sense confirms hers. As the wife of Glentworth, I should unquestionably have become a Protestant. You have a poet who says something like this,—
"a frame decayed,
Lets in new lights thro' chinks that time has made."
It is thus with me. I go to corruption, but the soul becomes more acute to discern, more wise to distinguish, as she approaches her immortal source."
"I know very little," said Isabella, tremblingly alive to the awful situation of the interesting being before her, whom she already loved; "but I remember the Bible says this, 'corruptible shall put on incorruption, this mortal shall put on immortality;' which is a great, great comfort. In a few weeks, I may myself be nearer death than you are, dear cousin."
"Cousin! cousin!—say that again, it is almost sister. I have never known the blessing of such sweet relationship."
"Then let me call you sister, dear Margarita, my elder sister; honoured as well as dear, and very dear, as such, will you become to me. I am used to sister-love, and it has always been very sweet to me."
"Poor child! have you not also found husband-love sweet? Perhaps not, it will be better in days to come."
Isabella could have dilated on her husband's love and her own happiness in it, but a delicate perception of Margarita's situation kept her silent. "Perhaps," she said, "the poor sufferer would rather it were so—rather that all the love of Glentworth belonged to self. I would not undeceive her; yet, surely Glentworth loved me once?" After thus conversing for an hour, Doctor Parizzi was announced, the signal for Isabella's departure. The patient eagerly pressed her hand, whispering, "Have you a small English Bible?"
"Mr. Glentworth has one, I know—so has Mary, for I have borrowed it."
"Bring me the blessed book to-morrow, and put it under my pillow; it will be to me a source of great comfort; and if discovered when all is over, can only be considered as the fault of the young English woman. Strange that a church founded on Christianity should deny the scriptures it professes to reverence and obey; but go, my dear Margaret, go willingly, that you may return the sooner."
Glentworth listened to Isabella's account of her interview with intense interest, though he endeavoured, for the relator's sake, to suppress its warmer expression; but he could not forbear to ask many questions, drawing out, more than once, every word uttered by Margarita, and spoken by Isabella, as it now appeared in the very tones so long, dear, and familiar to his senses; and he could have fancied Isabella grown more like to her than she had ever been before; he thanked her tenderly for her kindness to her cousin, as if desirous to consider their relationship her motive for the visit—to the devoted wife it mattered not, so he was pleased and consoled.
It happened fortunately in the opinion of Doctor Parizzi, to whom they mentioned the marchesa's request, that Mr. Glentworth had no book with him, therefore her request could not be acceded to. "It would be considered the deed of her father, and he has already more enemies than one in the church; even now I know he is under close surveillance, and dare not remain in Rome, where it would be very possible at any hour to place him silently in the Inquisition, which he is safe from by remaining at home. It is hard that the death of his little grandson should be followed by that of his only daughter, and that he cannot watch her dying couch."
"She will not die, I trust, at this time. She is very thin, and looking very ill; but I saw nothing which indicated danger about her."
"You saw her at the time when her fever was absent, and her usual pains subside. I would not, for your own sake, you should witness her times of restlessness and suffering. Besides, her mind is of the highest order, and controuls the body in an extraordinary degree; nevertheless, her fate is sealed."
"And she cannot have a Bible? the book she read in English a happy child, seated by her mother—the book which would be her guide to heaven!" said Isabella, in a mournful tone of expostulation.
"Be assured, dear Isabella," said Glentworth, "she is well acquainted with all of its contents from which necessary knowledge and sound comfort can be derived, either for life or death; and greatly would it add to my sorrow for poor Riccardini (ever my warm friend and a truly good man) to become amenable to blame for any action of ours, however well intended."
At a stated hour in the evening, Isabella, no longer loath, accompanied the doctor, and she then saw the Marchese, who praised the latter for his happy thought in bringing her countrywoman to his adored wife, who had been better throughout the day, and he graciously promised a great reward to the young woman who had benefitted her. This passed in the anteroom, for the Marchesa always insisted that more than one attendant at a time made her feel worse.
Twice in the twenty-four hours, for seven or eight days, did she thus receive Isabella, and converse, at second hand, with Glentworth, communicating her regret for having promised her mother, and still greater regret that she had not been absolved (as she might have been by the pope) from her bonds. "Alas!" said she, "I mourned so sincerely, and had borne so much, I believed that I could never love again; but, since my marriage, every circumstance of my wedded life brought back the very man from whom I was, in a two fold sense, for ever separated. Di Morello loved me as his country loves, with a fervour flattering to its object, therefore especially sweet to the heart of woman; but mine perversely refused to enjoy it—the 'what would Glentworth say? how would he have looked and smiled?' (he has a charming smile, you know, my dear), were questions continually arising; and though I prayed against them, and fasted until my constitution was ruined, still would the thought haunt me, that he was the true husband—he whom I must see no more."
"And thus unquestionably has my dear Glentworth felt also since we left England."
"We must say no more; the marchese expects to find you singing to me—can you not sing, Margaret?"
She could a little, but not then. By an impatient gesture, Isabella was compelled to make an effort, finding her husband was in the anteroom. At that moment she considered him her fellow-sufferer; she could have wept over him, but it was difficult indeed to sing for him.
But Isabella had a strong mind as well as a kind heart, and she sung, successively, various songs, until the arrival of Parizzi, who found her looking almost as pale as his patient; and it was understood that she could not return that evening, her situation accounting for her indisposition.
After a day or two's absence, in which the patient had become much weaker, Di Morello, with all the warmth of his country, insisted on Isabella's return; on which he was told, that "her English husband was a stubborn man, and cared not for money, and would himself fetch her away, even from the presence of his holiness, if he thought she was injured by remaining in a sick room; for, although of rude manners, he loved his young wife tenderly."
"Let the barbarian come with her to the Palazzo, and convince himself that she cannot be injured here," was the immediate answer.
When Isabella again became regular in her visits, the marchese took that opportunity for taking the air his long watchings and deep solicitude really required; and twice during these absences was Isabella enabled to bring, for a few minutes, poor Glentworth to the couch of his dying Margarita, whilst, with a beating heart, she watched in the anteroom and listened for servants' footsteps; happily none approached—the attendants were glad to avail themselves of the temporary relief her presence gave them.
Poor Margarita's flitting life appeared to concentrate all its powers for this long desired visit, and her eyes seemed to emit a supernatural light, when they were indeed assured that Glentworth stood before her; seizing his hand with her thin fingers, she drew the sorrow-stricken, silent, statue (which yet lived and suffered in every vein), before her, and hastily besought his forgiveness for the injuries she had inflicted on him, and for which her death could not atone, though it was, doubtless, the sacrifice. She then, without waiting for reply, besought him to take her father to England, and cherish him as a son, for her sake, saying, "Margaret, my Margaret and yours, will, I know, supply my place to him, not less than to you, for she is an angel, whom I will have you love—yes, your dying Margarita tells you to love, as you once loved her, entirely, devotedly!"
"That is impossible, Margarita—you feel it is. I am no longer capable of a passion so strong and so pure, but I will try to make her happy, and"
At this moment Isabella heard a step, and she recalled and led him to the place he had occupied just in time to escape the eye of the nurse; and, finding herself exceeding fluttered, she determined on going home immediately. On their way they passed the carriage of Di Morello, who stopped to inquire why she had retired so soon. "I was not well, so I sought my husband," was the reply; and the husband, with his slouched hat drawn still further over a countenance agitated by fear, indignation, pity, and sorrow, passed on.
Dr. Parizzi took her in his carriage that evening, when the marchese reproached her for leaving her charge so early in the morning. "I found her," said he, "in great agitation, doubtless from anger and disappointment. Surely, if you were poorly, the family could have given restoratives without actually quitting her; you are the only person who does her good; your humanity might operate—but the English have little feeling; so I will now give you money, which perhaps you want for your husband."
"I am not in want of money, sir," said Isabella, proudly; "English people attached to great families rarely are; and, to prove I am not devoid of feeling, I promise to pay the dear marchesa all possible attention without fee or reward, the remainder of my stay in Rome, provided my husband is always on the spot to aid me if I need him."
"Of course, that is but reasonable," was the reply "The marchesa fainted, I remember, when. But go, go, I beseech you! for I fear you will find her worse."
She was indeed worse, yet in one sense better; for she had been enabled to place her beloved father (the parent whose wishes had never thwarted her, and whose opinions were congenial with her own at the present time) in the hands of one whom she could trust; and she was well aware that from the death of her child new hopes would arise as to gaining his property. He was a man of many sorrows, and might soon be beset with many difficulties: why should he not be happy in England, and eventually give his property to her mother's relations, from whom it was partly received, and who now wanted it?
The next time poor Margarita was enabled to receive Glentworth under the kind management of his wife, all was calm and subdued in her deportment; her earthly cares had subsided, and her heavenly trust was strengthened. She comforted him by words of the happiest import, uttered in low tones—but words that sealed their impress on the memory and the heart; but she was now so worn, and appeared so evanescent, that every instant he feared she would expire before him. Isabella saw his suffering, and suggested that "he had better depart—she would herself remain."
"Take her advice, dear Glentworth—kiss me and depart."
Trembling, though tearless, and nearly as pallid as herself, did Glentworth bend over the wasted form, and press his cold lips to hers, then fly fast as his weakened limbs permitted, far from the house and from the city, until he found in some of its many ruins a desolate corner, where he could weep unseen, recall the memory of hopes raised but to be blighted, of love cherished only to be crushed. At times the memory of new duties, new calls on his affections, new powers to exercise his benevolence, seemed rising before him, rather with an appalling than a soothing aspect; for how could one so smitten down and afflicted find that resurrection of the spirit they demanded!
The doctor and the marchese came at their usual time, when the latter observed, "he was obliged to leave home some hours, being convened to a meeting of the senators."
"Go, dear Morello, and do not harass yourself by hastening away; you have been very good to me—yes, very good! On your return I shall be better than I am now, so do not be unhappy during your absence."
They both departed; but Parizzi stationed two attendants in the anteroom, and mentioned an intention to Isabella of sending for her in an hour; but the marchesa said, "she will not leave me till all is over; I owe you thanks for much, my good doctor, but for nothing so much as her; she has been far better to me than her husband could have been during this awful period."
This kind attendant was compelled to leave her for other pressing duties, and she remained silent a long lime, apparently in deep thought, which Isabella believed to have reference to her husband; but in this she was mistaken, as it appeared, for at length Margarita said,
"Did you ever see any person die, dear Margaret?"
"I never did—I have not even beheld a corpse. I was denied when I would have looked upon my father!"
"Yet I cannot forbear entreating you to remain with me, if possible; there will be no struggle, I trust, that would frighten, or eventually injure, you."
"I won't be frightened, dear Margarita—God will support me!"
"He will, my love! and I had rather be quiet, and resign myself into his merciful hands, than have the priests and the women about me, as my dear mother had. Place the little crucifix in my hand, that my latest thought may be of my Redeemer; and lift up your heart to heaven on my behalf, dear Margaret, and kiss my forehead once before you go."
"I will not go, my beloved sister! I will not leave you for a moment!"
There was no reply; and Isabella, sitting down on a low stool, took her left hand, which was very cold, and gently chafed it. She was thus employed when the good doctor Parizzi, who had been very anxious for them both, and hastened back the first moment he was able, entered the room—he saw that Margarita was dead! Calling the women from the anteroom, he at once announced the fact, and hastened to take away the gentle heretic, whose presence might have been obnoxious during the ceremonies that followed, although the general conduct of the Roman clergy is that of kindness and liberality.