'Ah, mon amie! ma bien! ameè amie!' cried Ellis, wiping her eyes, but vainly attempting to repress fresh tears; 't'aì-jè chercheè, t'aì-jè attendue, t'aì-jè si ardemment desireè, pour te retrouver ainsi? pleurant sur un tombeau? Et toi! ne me rappelle tu pas? M'a tu oubliee? Gabrielle! ma chère Gabrielle!'4
'Juste ciel!' exclaimed the other, 'que vois-je? Ma Julie! ma chère, ma tendre amie? Est il bien vrai? O! peut il être vrai, qu'il y ait encore du bonheur ici bas pour moi?'5
Locked in each other's arms, pressed to each other's bosoms, they now remained many minutes in speechless agony of emotion, from nearly overpowering surprise, from gusts of ungovernable, irrepressible sorrow, and heart-piercing recollections; though blended with the tenderest sympathy of joy.
This touching silent eloquence, these unutterable conflicts between transport and pain, were succeeded by a reciprocation of 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.