 | [ANNETTE DELARBRE] PART II. Bracebridge Hall, or, The humorists |  |
[ANNETTE DELARBRE] PART II.
On my return from Paris, about a year afterwards,
I turned off from the beaten route at
Rouen, to revisit some of the most striking scenes
of Lower Normandy. Having passed through
the lovely country of the Pays D'Ange, I reached
Honfleur on a fine afternoon, intending to
cross to Havre the next morning, and embark for
England. As I had no other way of passing
the evening, I strolled up the hill to enjoy the
fine prospect from the chapel of Notre Dame de
Grace, and while there I thought of inquiring
after the fate of poor Annette Delarbre. The
priest who had told me her story was officiating
at vespers, after which I accosted him and learnt
from him the remaining circumstances.
He told me, that from the time I had seen her
at the chapel her disorder took a sudden turn for
the worse, and her health rapidly declined. Her
cheerful intervals became shorter, and less frequent,
grew languid, silent, and moody in her melancholy;
her form was wasted; her looks pale
and disconsolate; and it was feared she would
never recover. She became impatient of all
sounds of gayety, and was never so contented
as when Eugene's mother was near her. The
good woman watched over her with patient and
yearning solicitude, and in seeking to beguile
her sorrows would half forget her own. Sometimes
as she sat looking upon her pallid face, the
tears would fill her eyes, which, when Annette
perceived, she would anxiously wipe them away,
and tell her not to grieve, for that Eugene would
soon return; and then she would affect a forced
gayety, as in former times, and sing a lively air;
but a sudden recollection would come over her,
and she would burst into tears, hang on the poor
mother's neck, and entreat her not to curse her
for having destroyed her son.
Just at this time, to the astonishment of every
one, news was received of Eugene; who, it appeared,
was still living. When almost drowned
been washed from the ship's deck. Finding
himself nearly exhausted he had fastened himself
to it, and floated for a day and a night until all
sense had left him. On recovering he had found
himself on board a vessel bound to India; but so
ill as not to move without assistance. His health
had continued precarious throughout the voyage;
on arriving in India he had experienced many
vicissitudes; and had been transferred from ship
to ship, and hospital to hospital. His constitution
had enabled him to struggle through every
hardship, and he was now in a distant port,
waiting only for the sailing of a ship to return
home.
Great caution was necessary in imparting
these tidings to the mother, and even then she
was nearly overcome by the transports of her
joy. But how to impart them to Annette was a
matter of still greater perplexity. Her state of
mind had been so morbid; she had been subject to
such violent changes; and the cause of her derangement
had been of such an inconsolable
forbore to tamper with her feelings. They had
never even hinted at the subject of her griefs;
nor encouraged the theme when she adverted to
it; but had passed it over in silence, hoping that
time would gradually wear the traces of it from
her recollection, or at least would render them
less painful. They now felt at a loss how to undeceive
her even in her misery; lest the sudden
recurrence of happiness might confirm the estrangement
of her reason, or might overpower
her enfeebled frame. They ventured, however,
to probe those wounds which they formerly did
not dare to touch; for they now had the balm to
pour into them. They led the conversation to
those topics which they had hitherto shunned;
and endeavoured to ascertain the current of her
thoughts in those varying moods that had formerly
perplexed them. They found, however,
that her mind was even more affected than they
had imagined. All her ideas were confused and
wandering. Her bright and cheerful moods,
which now grew seldomer than ever, were all
she had no recollection of her lover's having
been in danger, but was only anticipating his
arrival. “When the winter has passed away,”
said she, “and the trees put on their blossoms,
and the swallow comes back over the sea, he
will return.” When she was drooping and desponding,
it was in vain to remind her of what she
had said in her gayer moments, and to assure
her that Eugene would indeed return shortly.
She wept on in silence and appeared insensible to
their words. But at times her agitation became
violent when she would upbraid herself with
having driven Eugene from his mother, and
brought sorrow on her gray hairs. Her mind
admitted but one leading idea at a time, which
nothing could divert or efface; or if they ever
succeeded in interrupting the current of her fancy,
it only became the more incoherent, and increased
the feverishness that preyed upon both mind
and body. Her friends felt more alarm for her
than ever, for they feared that her senses were
undermined.
In the mean time Eugene returned to the village.
He was violently affected when the story
of Annette was told him. With bitterness of
heart he upbraided his own rashness and infatuation,
that had hurried him away from her; and
accused himself as the author of all her woes.
His mother would describe to him all the anguish
and remorse of poor Annette; the tenderness
with which she clung to her, and endeavoured,
even in the midst of her insanity, to
console her for the loss of her son; and the
touching expressions of affection that were
mingled with her most incoherent wanderings
of thought; until his feelings would be wound
up to agony, and he would intreat her to desist
from the recital. They did not dare as yet to
bring him into Annette's sight, but he was permitted
to see her when she was sleeping. The
tears streamed down his sunburnt cheeks as he
contemplated the ravages which grief and malady
had made, and his heart swelled almost to
braid of hair which she once gave him in token
of girlish affection, and which he had returned
to her in anger.
At length the physician that attended her determined
to adventure upon an experiment; to
take advantage of one of those cheerful moods,
when her mind was visited by hope, and to endeavour
to engraft, as it were, the reality upon
the delusions of her fancy. These moods had
now become very rare, for nature was sinking
under the continual pressure of her mental
malady, and the principle of reaction was daily
growing weaker. Every effort was tried to
bring on a cheerful interval of the kind. Several
of her most favourite companions were kept
continually about her. They chatted gayly;
they laughed, and sang, and danced; but Annette
reclined with languid frame and hollow
eye, and took no part in their gayety. At length
the winter was gone; the trees put forth their
leaves; the swallow began to build in the eaves
of the house, and the robin and wren piped all
revived. She began to deck her person
with unusual care, and bringing forth a basket of
artificial flowers, she went to work to wreathe
a bridal chaplet of white roses. Her companions
asked her why she prepared the chaplet.
“What!” said she with a smile, “have
you not noticed the trees putting on their wedding
dresses of blossoms; has not the swallow
flown back over the sea; do you not know that
the time is come for Eugene to return, that he
will be home to-morrow, and that on Sunday
we are to be married?”
Her words were reported to the physician,
and he seized on them at once. He directed
that her idea should be encouraged and acted
upon. Her words were echoed through the
house. Every one talked of the return of Eugene
as a matter of course; they congratulated
her upon her approaching happiness, and assisted
her in her preparations. The next morning
the same theme was resumed. She was dressed
out to receive her lover. Every bosom fluttered
“Eugene is coming,” was the cry. She
saw him alight at the door, and rushed, with a
shriek, into his arms.
Her friends trembled for the result of this
critical experiment; but she did not sink under
it, for her fancy had prepared her for his return.
She was as one in a dream, to whom a tide of
unlooked for prosperity, that would have over-whelmed
his waking reason, seems but the natural
current of circumstances. Her conversation,
however, showed that her senses were
wandering. There was an absolute forgetfulness
of all past sorrow; a wild and feverish
gayety that at times was incoherent.
The next morning she awoke languid and exhausted.
All the occurrences of the preceding
day had passed away from her mind as though
they had been the mere illusions of her fancy.
She rose melancholy and abstracted, and as she
dressed herself was heard to sing one of her
plaintive ballads. When she entered the parlour
her eyes were swoln with weeping. She
passed her hand across her forehead, and stood
musing like one endeavouring to recall a dream.
Eugene entered the room, and advanced towards
her; she looked at him with an eager searching
look, murmured some indistinct words, and before
he could reach her, sunk upon the floor.
She relapsed into a wild and unsettled state of
mind, but now that the first shock was over, the
Physician ordered that Eugene should keep continually
in her sight. Sometimes she did not
know him; at other times she would talk to him
as if he were going to sea, and would implore
him not to part from her in anger; and when he
was not present she would speak of him as buried
in the ocean, and would sit, with clasped hands,
looking upon the ground, the picture of despair.
As the agitation of her feelings subsided, and
her frame recovered from the shock which it
had received, she became more placid and coherent.
Eugene kept almost continually near her.
He formed the real object round which her scattered
them once more with the realities of life. But
her changeful disorder now appeared to take a
new turn. She became languid and inert, and
would sit for hours silent and almost in a state of
lethargy. If roused from this stupor, it seemed
as if her mind would make some attempts to
follow up a train of thought, but soon became
confused. She would regard every one that approached
her with an anxious and inquiring eye,
that seemed continually to disappoint itself.
Sometimes as her lover sat holding her hand she
would look pensively in his face without saying
a word, until his heart was overcome; and after
these transient fits of intellectual exertion she
would sink again into lethargy.
By degrees this stupor increased; her mind
appeared to have subsided into a stagnant and
almost deathlike calm. For the greater part of
the time her eyes were closed; her face almost
as fixed and passionless as that of a
corpse. She no longer took any notice of
surrounding objects. There was an awfulness
apprehension. The physician ordered that she
should be kept perfectly quiet; or that if she
evinced any agitation she should be gently lulled,
like a child, by some favourite tune.
She remained in this state for hours, hardly
seeming to breathe, and apparently sinking into
the sleep of death. Her chamber was profoundly
still. The attendants moved about it
with noiseless tread; every thing was communicated
by signs and whispers. Her lover sat by
her side, watching her with painful anxiety, and
fearing that every breath which stole from her
pale lips would be the last.
At length she heaved a deep sigh; and from
some convulsive motions appeared to be troubled
in her sleep. Her agitation increased, accompanied
by an indistinct moaning. One of
her companions, remembering the physician's instructions,
endeavoured to lull her, by singing
in a low voice a tender little air, which was a
particular favourite of Annette's. Probably it
had some connection in her mind with her story;
linked in her thoughts with sweet and sad re-membrances.
As she sang the agitation of Annette subsided.
A streak of faint colour came into her
cheeks; her eyelids became swoln with rising
tears, which trembled there for a moment, and
then stealing forth, coursed down her pallid
cheek. When the song was ended she opened
her eyes and looked about her as one awaking
in a strange place.
“Oh Eugene! Eugene!” said she, “it seems
as if I have had a long and dismal dream. What
has happened, and what has been the matter
with me?”
The questions were embarrassing; and before
they could be answered, the physician, who was
in the next room, entered; she took him by the
hand, looked up in his face, and made the same
inquiry. He endeavoured to put her off with
some evasive answer. “No! No!” cried she,
“I know I've been ill, and I have been dreaming
strangely. I thought Eugene had left us; and
was drowned!—But he has been to sea!” added
she, earnestly, as recollection kept flashing
upon her, “and he has been wrecked—and we
were all so wretched—and he came home again
one bright morning—and—oh!” said she,
pressing her hand against her forehead with a
sickly smile, “I see how it is; all has not been
right here. I begin to recollect—but it is all
past now—Eugene is here! and his mother is
happy—and we shall never, never part again—
shall we, Eugene?”
She sunk back in her chair exhausted. The
tears streamed down her cheeks. Her companions
hovered round her, not knowing what to
make of this sudden dawn of reason. Her lover
sobbed aloud. She opened her eyes again, and
looked upon them with an air of the sweetest
acknowledgment. “You are all so good to me!”
said she faintly.
The physician drew the father aside. “Your
daughter's mind is restored,” said he, “she is
sensible that she has been deranged; she is
the present. All that now remains is to keep
her calm and quiet until her health is re-established,
and then let her be married, in God's
name!”
“The wedding took place,” said the good
priest, “but a short time since; they were here
at the last fête during their honey moon, and a
handsomer and happier couple was not to be seen
as they danced under yonder trees. The young
man, his wife, and mother, now live on a fine
farm at Pont L'Eveque; and that model of a
ship which you see yonder, with white flowers
wreathed round it, is Annette's offering of thanks
to our Lady of Grace, for having listened to her
prayers, and protected her lover in the hour of
peril.”
The captain having finished, there was a
momentary silence. The tender hearted Lady
Lillycraft, who knew the story by heart, had led
the way in weeping, and indeed, had often begun
to shed tears before they had come to the
right place. The fair Julia was a little flurried
at the passage where wedding preparations were
mentioned; but the auditor most affected was the
simple Phoebe Wilkins. She had gradually
dropt her work in her lap, and sat sobbing through
the latter part of the story until towards the end,
when the happy reverse had nearly produced
another scene of hystericks.—“Go take this
case to my room again, child,” said Lady Lillycraft
kindly, “and don't cry so much.”
“I won't, an't please your Ladyship, if I can
help it; but I'm glad they made all up again
and were married.”
By the way, the case of this lovelorn damsel
begins to make some talk in the household, especially
their teens, of whom she has made confidants.
She is a great favourite with them all, but
particularly so since she has confided to them
her love secrets.
They enter into her concerns with all the
violent zeal and overwhelming sympathy with
which little boarding school ladies engage in the
politics of a love affair. I have noticed them
frequently clustering about her in private conferences;
or walking up and down the garden
terrace, under my window, listening to some long
and dolorous story of her afflictions, of which
I could now and then distinguish the ever recurring
phrases, “says he” and “says she.”
I accidentally interrupted one of these little
councils of war, when they were all huddled together
under a tree, and seemed to be earnestly
considering some interesting document.
The flutter at my approach showed that there
were some secrets under discussion; and I observed
the disconsolate Phoebe crumpling into
her bosom either a love letter or an old valentine,
and brushing away the tears from her cheeks.
The girl is a good girl, of a soft, melting nature,
and shows her concern at the cruelty of
her lover only in tears and drooping looks; but
with the little ladies who have espoused her
cause, it sparkles up into fiery indignation; and
I have noticed on Sunday many a glance
darted at the pew of the Tibbets' enough to
melt down the silver buttons on old Ready Money's
jacket.
| [ANNETTE DELARBRE] PART II. Bracebridge Hall, or, The humorists | |