by Mary Shelley
END OF VOL. II.
VOLUME III.
CHAPTER I.
On arriving in London from Hastings, Neville had repaired as usual to his father’s house; which, as was to be supposed at that season of the year, he found empty. On the second day Sir Boyvill presented himself unexpectedly. He looked cold and stern as ever. The father and son met as they were wont: the latter anticipating rebuke and angry unjust commands; the other assuming the lofty tone of legitimate authority, indignant at being disputed. “I hear from Sophia,” said Sir Boyvill, “that you are on the point of sailing for America, and this without deigning to acquaint me with your purpose. Is this fair? Common acquaintances act with more ceremony towards each other.”
“I feared your disapproval, sir,” replied Neville.
“And thought it less faulty to act without, than against a father’s consent: such is the vulgar notion; but a very erroneous one. It doubles the injury, both to disobey me, and to keep me in the dark with regard to my danger.”
“But if the danger be only imaginary?” observed his son.
Sir Boyvill replied, “I am not come to argue with you, nor to dissuade, nor to issue commands. I come with the more humble intention of being instructed. Sophy, though she evidently regrets your purposed journey, yet avers that it is not so wild and aimless as your expeditions have hitherto been — that the letters from Lancaster did lead to some unlooked-for disclosure. You little know me if you are not aware that I have the question, which you debate in so rash and boyish a manner, as deeply and more sorely at heart than you. Let me then hear the tale you have heard.”
Surprised and even touched to find his father unbend so far as to listen to him, Neville related the American’s story, and the information that it seemed probable that Osborne could afford. Sir Boyvill listened attentively, and then observed: “It will be matter of triumph to you, Gerard, to learn that your strange perseverance has a little overcome me. You are no longer a mere lad; and though inexperienced and headstrong, you have shown talents and decision; and I am willing to believe, though perhaps I am wrong, that you are guided by conviction, and not by a blind wish to disobey. Your conduct has been consistent throughout, and so far is entitled to respect. But you are, as I have said (and forgive a father for saying so) — inexperienced — a mere child in the world’s ways. You go straight-forward to your object, reckless of the remark that you excite, and the gall and wormwood that such remark imparts. Why will you not in some degree be swayed by me? Our views, if you would deign to inquire into mine, are not so dissimilar.”
Neville knew not what to answer, for every reply and explanation were likely to offend. “Hitherto,” continued Sir Boyvill, “in disgust at your wilfulness, I have only issued disregarded commands. But I am willing to treat my son as my friend, if he will let me; but it must be on one condition. I exact one promise.”
“I am ready, sir,” replied Neville, “to enter into any engagement that does not defeat my purpose.”
“It is simply,” said Sir Boyvill, “that you shall do nothing without consulting me. I, on the other hand, will promise not to interfere by issuing orders which you will not obey. But if there is any sense in your pursuit, my councils may assist. I ask no more than to offer advice, and to have opportunity afforded me to express my opinion. Will you not allow that so much is due to me? Will you not engage to communicate your projects, and to acquaint me unreservedly with every circumstance that falls to your knowledge? This is the limit of my exactions.”
“Most willingly I make this promise,” exclaimed Neville. “It will indeed be my pride to have your participation in my sacred task.”
“How far I can afford that,” replied Sir Boyvill, “depends on the conduct you will pursue. With regard to this Osborne, I consent at once that his story should be sifted — nay, that you should go to America for that purpose, while you are ready to engage that you will not act on any information you may gather, without my knowledge.”
“You may depend,” said Gerard, “that I will keep to the letter of my promise — and I pledge my honour gladly and unreservedly to tell you everything, to learn your wishes, and to endeavour throughout to act with your approbation.”
This concession made on both sides, the father and son conversed on more unreserved and kinder terms than they had ever before done. They passed the evening together, and though the arrogance, the wounded pride, the irritated feelings, and unredeemed selfishness of Sir Boyvill betrayed themselves at every moment, Gerard saw with surprise the weakness masked by so imposing an exterior. His angry commands and insulting blame had been used as batteries to defend the accessible part. He still loved and regretted Alithea, he pined to be assured of her truth — but he despised himself for these emotions — calling them feebleness and credulity. He felt assured that his worst suspicions would be proved true. — She might now be dead; he thought it probable that ere this her faults and sorrows were hushed in the grave: but had she remained voluntarily one half hour in the power of the man who had carried her from her home, no subsequent repentance, no remorse, no suffering could exculpate her. What he feared was the revival of a story so full of dishonour — the dragging a mangled half-formed tale again before the public, which would jeer his credulity, and make merry over the new gloss of a time-worn subject. When such a notion occupied his brain, his heart swelled with uncontrollable emotions of pride and indignation.
Neville cared little for the world. He thought of his mother’s wrongs and sufferings. He conjured up the long years which might have been spent in wretchedness; he longed, whatever she had done, to feel her maternal embrace, to show his gratitude for her early care of him. This was one view, one class of emotions present to his mind, when any occurrence tended to shake his belief in her unblemished honour and integrity, which was the religion of his heart. At the same time he, as much as his father, abhorred that the indifferent and light-hearted, the levelling and base, should have any food administered to their loathsome appetite for slander. So far as his father’s views were limited to the guarding Alithea’s name from further discussion, Neville honoured them. He showed Sir Boyvill that he was not so imprudent as he seemed, and brought him at last to allow that some discovery might ensue from his voyage. This open-hearted and peaceful interchange of sentiment between them was very cheering to both; and when Gerard visited Elizabeth the following day, his spirit was lighter and happier than it had ever been, and love was there to mingle its roseate visions with the sterner calls of duty. He entered Falkner’s house with much of triumph, and more of hope gladdening his heart; he left it horror-struck, aghast, and almost despairing.
He would not return to his father. Elizabeth’s supposition that Falkner spoke under a delusion, produced by sudden insanity; and his reluctance that while doubt hung over the event, that her dear name should be needlessly mixed up with the tragedy of his mother’s death, restrained him. He resolved at once to take no final step till the evening, till he had again seen Elizabeth, and learned what foundation there was for the tremendous avowal that still rung in his ears. The evening — he had mentioned the evening — but would it ever come? till then he walked in a frightful dream. He first went to the docks, withdrew his luggage, and yet left word that by possibility he might still join the vessel at Sheerness. He did this, for he was glad to give himself something to do; and yet, soon after, how gladly would he have exchanged those hours of suspense, for the certainty that too quickly came like a sudden ray of light, to show that he had long been walking at the edge of a giddy precipice. He received the packet and letter from the servant; dizzy and confounded he rode away; by the light of the first lamp he read Elizabeth’s letter, it disordered the current of his blood, it confused and maddened the functions of reason; putting spurs to his horse he galloped furiously on till he reached his father’s house.
Sir Boyvill was seated solitarily in his drawing-room, sipping his coffee, and indulging in various thought. His wedded life with Alithea — her charms, her admi
rable qualities, and sweet, endearing disposition — occupied him as they had never done before since her flight. For the first time the veil, woven by anger and vanity, fell from his eyes, and he saw distinctly the rashness and injustice of his past actions. He became convinced that deceit could never have had a part in her; — did not her child resemble her, and was he not truth itself? He had nourished an aversion to his son, as her offspring; now he looked on his virtues as an inheritance derived from his sweet mother, and his heart instinctively, unaccountably, warmed towards both.
Gerard opened the door of the room and looked in; Sir Boyvill could hardly have recognized him, his face whiter than marble, his eyes wild and wandering, his whole countenance convulsed, his person shrunk up and writhing. He threw the packet on the table, crying out, “Victory, my father, victory!” in a voice so shrill and dissonant, so near a shriek, as to inspire his auditor with fear rather than triumph: “Read! read!” he continued, “I have not yet — I keep my word, you shall know all, even before me — and yet, I do know all, I have seen my mother’s destroyer! She is dead!”
Sir Boyvill now, in some degree, comprehended his son’s agitation. He saw that he was too much excited to act with any calmness; he could not guess how he had discovered the villain on whom both would desire to heap endless, unsatiable revenge; but he did not wonder, that if he had really encountered this man, and learned his deeds, that he should be transported into a sort of frenzy. He took up the packet — he cut the string that tied it — he turned over the papers, and his brow darkened. “Here is a long narrative,” he said; “there is much of excuse, and much of explanation here. The story ought to be short that exculpates her; I do not like these varnishings of the simple truth.”
“You will find none,” said Neville; “at least I heard none. His words were direct — his avowal contained no subterfuge.”
“Of whom do you speak?” asked Sir Boyvill.
“Read,” said Neville; “and you will know more than I; but half an hour ago those papers were put into my hands. I have not read them. I give them to you before I am aware of their contents, that I might fully acquit myself of my promise. They come from Rupert Falkner, my mother’s destroyer.”
“Leave me then to my task,” said Sir Boyvill, in an altered and subdued tone. “You speak of strange things: facts to undo a frightful past, and to generate a future, dedicated to a new revenge. Leave me; let me remain alone while I read — while I ponder on what credit I may give — what course I must pursue. Leave me, Gerard. I have long injured you; but at last you will be repaid. Come back in a few hours; the moment I am master of the contents of the manuscript I will see you.”
Gerard left him. He had scarcely been aware of what he was doing when he carried the packet, unopened, unexamined, to his father. He had feared that he might be tempted — to what? — to conceal his mother’s vindication? Never! Yet the responsibility sat heavy on him; and, driven by an irresistible impulse, he had resolved to deprive himself of all power of acting basely, by giving at once publicity to all that passed. When he had done this, he felt as if he had applied a match to some fatal rocket which would carry destruction to the very temple and shrine of his dearest hopes — to Elizabeth’s happiness and life. But the deed was done; he could but shut his eyes and let the mortal ball proceed towards its destined prey.
Gerard was young. He aspired to happiness with all the ardour of youth. While we are young, we feel as if happiness were the birthright of humanity; after a long and cruel apprenticeship, we disengage ourselves from this illusion — or from (a yet more difficult sacrifice) the realities that produce felicity — for on earth there are such, though they are too often linked with adjuncts that make the purchase of them cost in the end peace of mind and a pure conscience. Thus was it with Gerard. With Elizabeth, winning her love and making her his own, he felt assured of a life of happiness; but to sacrifice his mother’s name — the holy task to which he had dedicated himself from childhood, for the sake of obtaining her — it must not be!
With this thought came destruction to the fresh-sprung hopes that adorned his existence. Gerard’s poetic and tender nature led him to form sweet dreams of joys derived from a union which would be cemented by affection, sympathy, and enthusiastic admiration of the virtues of his companion. In Elizabeth he had beheld the embodying of all his wishes; in her eyes he had read their accomplishment. Her love for her father had first awakened his love. Her wise, simple, upright train of thinking — the sensibility ennobled by self-command, yet ever ready to spring forth and comfort the unhappy — her generosity — her total abnegation of self — her understanding so just and true, yet tempered with feminine aptitude to adapt itself to the situation and sentiments of others, all these qualities, discovered one by one, and made dear by the friendship she displayed towards him, had opened the hitherto closed gates of the world’s only paradise; and now he found that, as the poet says, evil had entered even there—”and the trail of the serpent,” marked with slimy poison the fairest and purest of Eden’s flowers.
Neville had looked forward to a life of blameless but ecstatic happiness, as her friend, her protector, her husband. Youth, without being presumptuous, is often sanguine. Prodigal of self, it expects, as of right, a full return. Ready to assist Elizabeth in her task of watching over her father’s health — who in his eyes, was wasting gradually away — he felt that he should be near to soften her regrets, and fill his place; and soothe her sinking spirits when struck by a loss which to her would seem so dire.
And now — Falkner! — He believed him to be in a state of health that did not leave him many years to live. He recollected him at Marseilles, stretched on his couch, feeble as an infant, the hues of death on his brow. He thought of him as he had seen him that morning — his figure bent by disease — his face ashy pale and worn. He was the man whom thirteen years before he remembered in upright, proud, and youthful strength — woe and disease had brought on the ravages of age — he was struck by premature decay — a few years, by the course of nature, he would be laid in his grave. But Gerard could not leave him this respite — he must at once meet him in such encounter as must end in the death of one of the combatants — whichever that might be, there was no hope for Elizabeth — in either case she lost her all — in either case Falkner would die, and an insuperable barrier be raised between her and her only other friend. Neville’s ardent and gentle spirit quivered with agony as he thought of these things. “O ye destructive powers of nature!” he cried; “come all! Storm — flood and fire — mingled in one dire whirlwind; or bring the deadlier tortures tyrants have inflicted, and martyrs undergone, and say, can any agony equal that which convulses the human heart, when writhing under contending passions — torn by contrary purposes. This very morning Elizabeth was all the universe of hope and joy. I would not for worlds have injured one hair of her dear head, and now I meditate a deed that is to consign her to eternal grief.”
Athwart this tumult of thought, came the recollection that he was still in ignorance of the truth. He called to mind the narrative which his father was then reading — would it reveal aught that must alter the line of conduct which he now considered inevitable? a devouring curiosity was awakened. Leaving his father, he had rushed into the open air, in obedience to the instinct that always leads the unquiet mind to seek the solace of bodily activity. He had hurried into Hyde Park, which then, in the dimness of night, appeared a wide expanse — a limitless waste. He hurried to and fro on the turf — he saw nothing — he was aware of nothing, except the internal war that shook him. Now, as he felt the eager desire to get quit of doubt, he fancied that several hours must have elapsed, and that his father must be waiting for him. The clocks of London struck — he counted — it was but eleven — he had been there scarcely more than an hour.
CHAPTER II.
Neville returned home — he paused at the drawing-room door — a slight noise indicated that his father was within — his hand was on the lock, but he retreated; he would
not intrude uncalled for — he wandered through the dark empty rooms, till a bell rang. Sir Boyvill inquired for him — he hurried into his presence — he devoured the expression of his countenance with his eyes, trying to read the thought within. Sir Boyvill’s face was usually stamped with an unvarying expression of cold self-possession, mingled with sarcasm. These feelings were now at their height — his aged countenance, withered and deep lined, was admirably calculated to depict the concentrated disdain that sat upon his lips and elevated his brows. He pointed to the papers before him, and said in a composed, yet hollow voice, “Take these away — read, for it is necessary you should — the amplified confession of the murderer.”
Gerard’s blood ran cold. “Yet why call it a confession,” continued Sir Boyvill, his assumed contempt rising into angry scorn; “from the beginning to the end it is a lie. He would varnish over his unparalleled guilt — he would shelter himself from its punishment, but in vain. Read, Gerard — read and be satisfied. I have wronged your mother — she was innocent — murdered. Be assured that her vindication shall be heard as loudly as her accusation, and that her destroyer shall die to expiate her death.”