by Mary Shelley
“Still she was contented. Her temper was sweet, and yielding. She did not look on each cross in circumstance as an injury, or a misfortune; but rather as a call on her philosophy, which it was her duty to meet cheerfully. Her heart was too warm not to shrink with pain from her husband’s ungenerous nature, but she had a resource, to which she gave herself up with ardour. She turned the full, but checked tide of her affections, from her husband to her son. Gerard was all in all to her — her hope, her joy, her idol, and he returned her love with more than a child’s affection. His sensibility developed early, and she cultivated it perhaps too much. She wished to secure a friend — and the temptation afforded by the singular affectionateness of his disposition, and his great intelligence, was too strong. Mr. Neville strongly objected to the excess to which she carried her maternal cares, and augured ill of the boy’s devotion to her; but here his interference was vain, the mother could not alter; and the child, standing at her side, eyed his father even then with a sort of proud indignation, on his daring to step in between them.
“To Mrs. Neville, this boy was as an angel sent to comfort her. She could not bear that any one should attend on him except herself — she was his playmate, and instructress. When he opened his eyes from sleep, his mother’s face was the first he saw; she hushed him to rest at night — did he hurt himself, she flew to his side in agony — did she utter one word of tender reproach, it curbed his childish passions on the instant — he seldom left her side, but she was young enough to share his pastimes — her heart overflowed with its excess of love, and he, even as a mere child, regarded her as something to protect, as well as worship.
“Mr. Neville was angry, and often reproved her too great partiality, though by degrees it won some favour in his eyes. Gerard was his son and heir, and he might be supposed to have a share in the affection lavished on him. He respected, also, the absence of frivolous vanity, that led her to be happy with her child — contented, away from London — satisfied in fulfilling the duties of her station, though his eyes only were there to admire. He persuaded himself that there must exist much latent attachment towards himself, to reconcile her to this sort of exile; and her disinterestedness received the reward of his confidence, — he who never before believed or respected woman. He began to yield to her more than he was wont, and to consider that he ought now and then to show some approbation of her conduct.
“When Gerard was about six years old, they went abroad on a tour. Travelling was a mode of passing the time, that accorded well with Mr. Neville’s matrimonial view of keeping his wife to himself. In the travelling carriage, he only was beside her; in seeing sights, he, who had visited Italy before, and had some taste, could guide and instruct her; and short as their stay in each town was, there was no possibility of forming serious attachments, or lasting friendships; at the same time his vanity was gratified by seeing his wife and son admired by strangers and natives. While abroad, Mrs. Neville bore another child, a little girl. This added greatly to her domestic happiness. Her husband grew extremely fond of his baby daughter; there was too much difference of age, to set her up as a rival to Gerard; she was by contradistinction the father’s darling it is true, but this rather produced harmony than discord — for the mother loved both children too well to feel hurt by the preference; and, softened by having an object he really loved to lavish his favour on, Sir Boyvill grew much more of a tender father, and indulgent husband, than he had hitherto shown himself.
CHAPTER XVII.
“It was not until a year after their return from abroad that the events happened which terminated so disastrously Mrs. Neville’s career in her own family. I am perplexed how to begin the narration, the story is so confused and obscure; the mystery that envelops the catastrophe, so impenetrable; the circumstances that we really know so few, and these gleaned, as it were ear by ear, as dropped in the passage of the event; so making, if you will excuse my rustic metaphor, a meagre, illassorted sheaf. Mrs. Neville had been a wife nearly ten years; never had she done one act that could be disapproved by the most circumspect; never had she swerved from that veracity and open line of conduct which was a safeguard against the mingled ardour and timidity of her disposition. It required extraordinary circumstances to taint her reputation, as, to say the least, it is tainted; and we are still in the dark as to the main instrument by which these circumstances were brought about. Their result is too obvious. At one moment Mrs. Neville was an honoured and beloved wife; a mother, whose heart’s pulsations depended on the well-being of her children; and whose fond affection was to them as the sun’s warmth to the opening flower. At the next, where is she? Silence and mystery wrap her from us; and surmise is busy in tracing shapes of infamy from the fragments of truth that we can gather.
“On the return of the family from abroad, they again repaired to their seat of Dromore; and, at the time to which I allude, Mr. Neville had left them there, to go to London on business. He went for a week; but his stay was prolonged to nearly two months. He heard regularly from his wife. Her letters were more full of her children and household than herself; but they were kind; and her maternal heart warmed, as she wrote, into anticipations of future happiness in her children, greater even than she now enjoyed. Every line breathed of home and peace; every word seemed to emanate from a mind in which lurked no concealed feeling, no one thought unconfessed or unapproved. To such a home, cheered by so much beauty and excellence, Sir Boyvill returned, as he declares, with eager and grateful affection. The time came when he was expected at home; and true, both to the day and to the hour, he arrived. It was at eleven at night. His carriage drove through the grounds; the doors of the house were thrown open; several eager faces were thrust forward with more of curiosity and anxiety than is at all usual in an English household; and as he alighted, the servants looked aghast, and exchanged glances of terror. The truth was soon divulged. At about six in the evening, Mrs. Neville, who dined early in the absence of her husband, had gone to walk in the park with Gerard; since then neither had returned.
“When the darkness, which closed in with a furious wind and thunder-storm, rendered her prolonged absence a matter of solicitude, the servants had gone to seek her in the grounds. They found their mistress’s key in the lock of a small masked gate that opened on a green lane. They went one way up the lane to meet her; but found no trace. They followed the other, with like ill success. Again they searched the park with more care; and again resorted to the lanes and fields; but in vain. The obvious idea was, that she had taken shelter from the strom; and a horrible fear presented itself, that she might have found no better retreat than a tree or hayrick, and that she had been struck by the lightning. A slight hope remained, that she had gone along the high-road to meet her husband, and would return with him. His arrival alone took from them this last hope.
“The country was now raised. Servants and tenants were sent divers ways; some on horseback, some on foot. Though summer-time, the night was inclement and tempestuous; a furious west wind swept the earth; high trees were bowed to the ground; and the blast howled and roared, at once baffling and braving every attempt to hear cries or distinguish sounds.
“Dromore is situated in a beautiful, but wild and thinly inhabited part of Cumberland, on the verge of the plain that forms the coast where it first breaks into uplands, dingles and ravines; there is no high road towards the sea — but as they took the one that led to Lancaster, they approached the ocean, and the distant roar of its breakers filled up the pauses of the gale. It was on this road, at the distance of some five miles from the house, that Gerard was found. He was lying on the road in a sort of stupor — which could be hardly called sleep — his clothes were drenched by the storm — and his limbs stiff from cold. When first found, and disturbed, he looked wildly round; and his cry was for his mother — terror was painted in his face — and his intellects seemed deranged by a sudden and terrific shock. He was taken home. His father hurried to him, questioning him eagerly — but the child only raved that his mothe
r was being carried from him; and his pathetic cry of, ‘Come back, mamma — stop — stop for me!’ filled every one with terror and amazement. As speedily as possible medical assistance was sent for; the physician found the boy in a high fever, the result of fright, exposure to the storm, and subsequent sleep in his wet clothes in the open air. It was many days before his life could be answered for — or the delirium left him — and still he raved that his mother was being carried off — and would not stop for him, and often he tried to rise from his bed under the notion of pursuing her.
“At length consciousness returned — consciousness of the actual objects around him, mingled with an indistinct recollection of the events that immediately preceded his illness. His pulse was calm; his reason restored; and he lay quietly with open eyes fixed on the door of his chamber. At last he showed symptoms of uneasiness, and asked for his mother. Mr. Neville was called, as he had desired he might be, the moment his son showed signs of being rational. Gerard looked up in his father’s face with an expression of disappointment, and again murmured, ‘Send mamma to me.’
“Fearful of renewing his fever by awakening his disquietude, his father told him that mamma was tired and asleep, and could not be disturbed.
“‘Then she has come back?’ he cried; ‘that man did not take her quite away? The carriage drove here at last.’
“Such words renewed all their consternation. Afraid of questioning the child himself, lest he should terrify him, Mr. Neville sent the nurse who had been with him from infancy, to extract information. His story was wild and strange; and here I must remark that the account drawn from him by the woman’s questions, differs somewhat from that to which he afterwards adhered; though not so much in actual circumstances, as in the colouring given. This his father attributes to his subsequent endeavours to clear his mother from blame; while he asserts, and I believe with truth, that time and knowledge, by giving him an insight into motives, threw a new light on the words and actions which he remembered; and that circumstances which bore one aspect to his ignorance, became clearly visible in another, when he was able to understand the real meaning of several fragments of conversation which had at first been devoid of sense.
“All that he could tell during this first stage of inquiry was, that his mother had taken him to walk with her in the grounds, that she had unlocked the gate that opened out on the lane with her own key, and that a gentleman was without waiting.
“Had he ever seen the gentleman before?
“Never; he did not know him, and the stranger took no notice of him; he heard his mamma call him Rupert.
“His mother took the stranger’s arm, and walked on through the lane, while he sometimes ran on before, and sometimes remained at her side. They conversed earnestly, and his mother at one time cried; he, Gerard, felt very angry with the gentleman for making her cry, and took her hand and begged her to leave him and come away; but she kissed the boy, told him to run on, and they would return very soon.
“Yet they did not return, but walked on to where the lane was intersected by the high road. Here they stopped, and continued to converse; but it seemed as if she were saying good bye to the stranger, when a carriage, driven at full speed, was seen approaching; it stopped close to them; it was an open carriage, a sort of calèhe, with the head pulled forward low down; as it stopped, his mother went up to it, when the stranger, pulling the child’s hand from hers, hurried her into the carriage, and sprang in after, crying out to him, ‘Jump in, my boy!’ but before he could do so, the postillion whipped the horses, who started forward almost with a bound, and were in a gallop on the instant; he heard his mother scream; the words ‘My child! my son!’ reached his ears, shrieked in agony. He ran wildly after the carriage; it disappeared, but still he ran on. It must stop somewhere, and he would reach it, his mother had called for him: and thus, crying, breathless, panting, he ran along the high road; the carriage had long been out of sight, the sun had set; the wind, rising in gusts, brought on the thunder storm; yet, still he pursued, till nature and his boyish strength gave way, and he threw himself on the ground to gain breath. At every sound which he fancied might be that of carriage wheels, he started up; but it was only the howling of the blast in the trees, and the hoarse muttering of the now distant thunder; twice and thrice he rose from the earth, and ran forwards; till, wet through, and utterly exhausted, he lay on the ground, weeping bitterly, and expecting to die.
“This was all his story. It produced a strict inquiry among the servants, and then circumstances scarcely adverted to were remembered, and some sort of information gained. About a week or ten days before, a gentleman on horseback, unattended by any servant, had called. He asked for Mrs. Neville; the servant requested his name, but he muttered that it was no matter. He was ushered into the room, where their mistress was sitting; he staid at least two hours; and when he was gone, they remarked that her eyes were red, as if she had been weeping. The stranger called again, and Mrs. Neville was denied to him.
“Inquiries were now instituted in the neighbourhood. One or two persons remembered something of a stranger gentleman who had been seen riding about the country, mounted on a fine bay horse. One evening, he was seen coming from the masked gate in the park, which caused it to be believed that he was on a visit at Dromore. Nothing more was known of him.
“The servants tasked themselves to remember more particularly the actions of their lady, and it was remembered that one evening she went to walk alone in the grounds, some accident having prevented Gerard from accompanying her. She returned very late, at ten o’clock; and there was, her maid declared, a good deal of confusion in her manner. She threw herself on a sofa, ordered the lights to be taken away, and remained alone for two hours past her usual time for retiring for the night, till, at last, her maid ventured in to ask her if she needed anything. She was awake, and when lights were brought, had evidently been weeping. After this, she only went out in the carriage with the children, until the fatal night of her disappearance. It was remembered, also, that she received several letters, brought by a strange man, who left them without waiting for any answer. She received one the very morning of the day when she left her home, and this last note was found; it threw some light on the fatal mystery. It was only dated with the day of the week, and began abruptly: —
“On one condition I will obey you; I will never see you more — I will leave the country; I will forget my threats against the most hated life in the world; he is safe, on one condition. You must meet me this evening; I desire to see you for the last time. Come to the gate of your park that opens on the lane, which you opened for me a few nights ago; you will find me waiting outside. I will not detain you long. A farewell to you and to my just revenge shall be breathed at once. If you do not come, I will wait till night, till I am past hope, and then enter your grounds, wait till he returns, and — Oh, do not force me to say what you will call wicked and worse than unkind, but come, come, and prevent all ill. I charge you come, and hereafter you shall, if you please, be for ever delivered from your
“‘Rupert.’
“On this letter she went; yet in innocence, for she took her child with her. Could any one doubt that she was betrayed, carried off, the victim of the foulest treachery? No one did doubt it. Police were sent for from London, the country searched, the most minute inquiries set on foot. Sometimes it was supposed that a clue was found, but in the end all failed. Month after month passed; hope became despair; pity merged into surmise; and condemnation quickly followed. If she had been carried forcibly from her home, still she could not for ever be imprisoned and debarred from all possibility at least of writing. She might have sent tidings from the ends of the earth, nay, it was madness to think that she could be carried far against her own will. In any town, in any village, she might appeal to the justice and humanity of her fellow-creatures, and be set free. She would not have remained with the man of violence who had torn her away, unless she had at last become a party in his act, and lost all right to return to her
husband’s roof.
“Such suspicions began to creep about — rather felt in men’s minds, than inferred in their speech — till her husband first uttered the fatal word; and then, as if set free from a spell, each one was full of indignation at her dereliction, and his injuries. Sir Boyvill was beyond all men vain — vanity rendered him liable to jealousy — and when jealous, full of sore and angry feelings. His selfishness and unforgiving nature, which had been neutralized by his wife’s virtues, now quickened by the idea of her guilt, burst forth and engrossed every other emotion. He was injured there where the pride of man is most accessible — branded by pity — the tale of the world. He had feared such a catastrophe during the first years of his wedded life, being conscious of the difference which age and nature had placed between him and his wife. In the recesses of his heart he had felt deeply grateful to her for having dissipated these fears. From the moment that her prudent conduct had made him secure, he had become another man — as far as his defective nature and narrow mind permitted — he had grown virtuous and disinterested; but this fabric of good qualities was the result of her influence; and it was swept away and utterly erased from the moment she left him, and that love and esteem were exchanged for contempt and hatred.