by Mary Shelley
“I cannot speak, cannot think of myself,” replied Elizabeth, “except in one way — to think all delays tedious that keep me from my father’s side, and prevent me from sharing his wretchedness.”
“And yet you must not go to him,” said Neville; “yours is the scheme of inexperience — but it must not be. How can you share Mr. Falkner’s sorrows? you will scarcely be admitted to see him. And how unfit for you is such a scene. You cannot guess what these things are; believe me, they are most unfit for one of your sex and age. I grieve to say in what execration the supposed murderer of my mother is held. You would be subjected to insult, you are alone and unprotected — even your high spirit would be broken by the evils that will gather round you.”
“I think not,” replied Elizabeth; “I cannot believe that my spirit can be broken by injustice, or that it can quail while I perform a duty. It would indeed — spirit and heart would both break — were my conscience burthened with the sin of deserting my father. In prison — amidst the hootings of the mob — if for such I am reserved, I shall be safe and well guarded by the approbation of my own mind.”
“Would that an angel from heaven would descend to guard you!” cried Neville, passionately, “but in this inexplicable world, guilt and innocence are so mingled, that the one reaps the blessings deserved by the other; and the latter sinks beneath the punishment incurred by the former. Else why, removed by birth, space, and time from all natural connexion with the cause of all this misery, are you cast on this evil hour? Were you his daughter, my heart would not rebel — blood calls to blood, and a child’s duty is paramount. But you are no child of his; you spring from another race — honour, affection, prosperity await you in your proper sphere. What have you to do with that unhappy man?
“Yet another word,” he continued, seeing Elizabeth about to reply with eagerness; “and yet how vain are words to persuade. Could I but take you to a tower, and show you, spread below, the course of events, and the fatal results of your present resolves, you would suffer me to lead you from the dangerous path you are treading. If once you reach Cumberland, and appear publicly as Falkner’s daughter, the name of Raby is lost to you for ever; and if the worst should come, where will you turn for support? Where fly for refuge? Unable to convince, I would substitute entreaty, and implore you to spare yourself these evils. You know not, indeed you do not know, what you are about to do.”
Thus impetuously urged, Elizabeth was for a few minutes half bewildered; “I am afraid,” she said, “I suppose indeed that I am something of a savage — unable to bend to the laws of civilization. I did not know this — I thought I was much like other girls — attached to their home and parents — fulfilling their daily duties, as the necessities of those parents demand. I nursed my father when sick: now that he is in worse adversity, I still feel my proper place to be at his side, as his comforter and companion, glad if I can be of any solace to him. He is my father — my more than father — my preserver in helpless childhood from the worst fate. May I suffer every evil when I forget that! Even if a false belief of his guilt renders the world inimical to him, it will not be so unjust to one as inoffending as I; and if it is, it cannot touch me. Methinks we speak two languages — I speak of duties the most sacred; to fail in which, would entail self-condemnation on me to the end of my days. You speak of the conveniences, the paint, the outside of life, which is as nothing in comparison. I cannot yield — I grieve to seem eccentric and headstrong — it is my hard fate, not my will, so to appear.”
“Do not give such a name,” replied Neville, deeply moved, “to an heroic generosity, only too exalted for this bad world. It is I that must yield, and pray to God to shield and recompense you as you deserve — he only can — he and your own noble heart. And will you pardon me, Miss Raby?”
“Do not give me that name,” interrupted Elizabeth. “I act in contradiction to my relations’ wishes — I will not assume their name. The other, too, must be painful to you. Call me Elizabeth—”
Neville took her hand. “I am,” he said, “a selfish, odious being; you are full of self-sacrifice, of thought for others, of every blessed virtue. I think of myself — and hate myself while I yield to the impulse. Dear, dear Elizabeth, since thus I may call you, are you not all I have ever imagined of excellent; I love you beyond all thought or word; and have for many, many months, since first I saw you at Marseilles. Without reflection, I knew and felt you to be the being my soul thirsted for. I find you, and you are lost!”
Love’s own colour dyed deeply the cheeks of Elizabeth — she felt recompensed for every suffering in the simple knowledge of the sentiment she inspired. A moment before, clouds and storms had surrounded her horizon; now the sun broke in upon it. It was a transcendent though a transient gleam. The thought of Falkner again obscured the radiance, which, even in its momentary flash, was as if an angel, bearing with it the airs of Paradise, had revealed itself, and then again become obscured.
Neville was less composed. He had never fully entered into his father’s bitter thoughts against Falkner — and Elizabeth’s fidelity to the unhappy man, made him half suspect the unexampled cruelty and injustice of the whole proceeding. Still compassion for the prisoner was a passive feeling; while horror at the fate preparing for Elizabeth stirred his sensitive nature to its depths, and filled him with anguish. He walked impatiently about the room — and stopped before her, fixing on her his soft lustrous eyes, whose expression was so full of tenderness and passion. Elizabeth felt their influence; but this was not the hour to yield to the delusions of love, and she said—”Now you will leave me, Mr. Neville — I have far to travel to-morrow — good night.”
“Have patience with me yet a moment longer,” said Neville; “I cannot leave you thus — without offering from my whole heart, and conjuring you to accept my services. Parting thus, it is very uncertain when we meet again, and fearful sufferings are prepared for you. I believe that you esteem, that you have confidence in me. You know that my disposition is constant and persevering. You know, that the aim of my early life being fulfilled, and my mother’s name freed from the unworthy aspersions cast upon it, I at once transfer every thought, every hope, to your well-being. At a distance, knowing the scene of misery in which you are placed, I shall be agitated by perpetual fears, and pass unnumbered hours of bitter disquietude. Will you promise me, that, despite all that divides us, if you need any aid or service, you will write to me, commanding me, in the full assurance that all you order shall be executed in its very spirit and letter.”
“I will indeed,” replied Elizabeth, “for I know that whatever happens you will always be my friend.”
“Your true, your best, your devoted friend,” cried Neville; “it will always be my dearest ambition to prove all this. I will not adopt the name of brother — yet use me as a brother — no brother ever cherished the honour, safety, and happiness of a sister as I do yours.”
“You know,” said Elizabeth, “that I shall not be alone — that I go to one to whom I owe obedience, and who can direct me. If in his frightful situation he needs counsel and assistance, it is not you, alas, that can render them; still in the world of sorrow in which I shall soon be an inhabitant, it will be a solace and support to think of your kindness, and rely upon it as unreservedly as I do.”
“A world of sorrow, indeed!” repeated Neville,—”A world of ignominy and woe, such as ought never to have visited you, even in a dream. — Its duration will be prolonged also beyond all fortitude or patience. Of course Mr. Falkner’s legal advisers will insist on the necessity of Osborne’s testimony — he must be sent for, and brought over. This demands time; it will be spring before the trial takes place.”
“And all this time my father will be imprisoned as a felon in a gaol,” cried Elizabeth; tears, bitter tears, springing into her eyes. “Most horrible! Oh how necessary that I should be with him, to lighten the weary, unending hours. I thought all would soon be over — and his liberation at hand; this delay of justice is indeed beyond my fe
ars.”
“Thank God, that you are thus sanguine of the final result,” replied Neville. “I will not say a word to shake your confidence, and I fervently hope it is well placed. And now indeed good night, I will not detain you longer. All good angels guard you — you cannot guess how bitterly I feel the necessity that disjoins us in this hour of mutual suffering.”
“Forgive me,” said Elizabeth, “but my thoughts are with my father. You have conjured up a whole train of fearful anticipations; but I will quell them, and be patient again — for his, and all our sakes.”
They separated, and at the moment of parting, a gush of tenderness smoothed the harsher feelings inspired by their grief — despite herself, Elizabeth felt comforted by her friend’s faithful and earnest attachment; and a few minutes passed in self-communion restored her to those hopes for the best, which are the natural growth of youth and inexperience. Neville left the inn immediately on quitting her; and she, unable to sleep, occupied by various reveries, passed a few uneasy, and yet not wholly miserable, hours. A hallowed calm at last succeeded to her anxious fears; springing from a reliance on Heaven, and the natural delight at being loved by one so dear; it smoothed her wrinkled cares, and blunted her poignant regrets.
At earliest dawn she sprung from her bed, eager to pursue her journey — nor did she again take rest till she arrived at Carlisle.
CHAPTER IX.
In the best room that could be allotted to him, consistently with safe imprisonment, and with such comforts around, as money might obtain, Falkner passed the lingering days. What so forlorn as the comforts of a prison! the wigwam of the Indian is more pleasing to the imagination — that is in close contiguity with Nature, and partakes her charm — no barrier exists between it and freedom — and nature and freedom are the staunch friends of unsophisticated man. But a gaol’s best room sickens the heart in its very show of accommodation. The strongly barred windows, looking out on the narrow court, surrounded by high frowning walls; the appalling sounds that reach the ear, in such close neighbourhood to crime and woe; — the squalid appearance given to each inhabitant by the confined air — the surly authoritative manners of the attendants — not dependent on the prisoner, but on the state — the knowledge that all may come in, while he cannot get out — and the conviction that the very unshackled state of his limbs depends upon his tame submission and apparent apathy; — there is no one circumstance that does not wound the free spirit of man, and make him envy the meanest animal that breathes the free air, and is at liberty.
Falkner, by that strange law of our nature, which makes us conceive the future, without being aware of our foreknowledge, had acquainted his imagination with these things — and, while writing his history amidst the farstretched mountains of Greece, had shrunk and trembled before such an aspect of slavery; and yet now that it had fallen on him, he felt in the first instance more satisfied, more truly free, than for many a long day before.
There is no tyranny so hard as fear; no prison so abhorrent as apprehension; Falkner was not a coward, yet he feared. He feared discovery — he feared ignominy, and had eagerly sought death to free him from the terror of such evils, with which, perhaps — so strangely are we formed — Osborne had infected him. It had come — it was here — it was his life, his daily bread; and he rose above the infliction calmly, and almost proudly. It is with pride that we say, that we endure the worst — there is a very freedom in the thought, that the animosity of all mankind is roused against us — and every engine set at work for our injury — no more can be done the gulf is passed — the claw of the wild beast is on our heart — but the spirit soars more freely still. To this was added the singular relief which confession brings to the human heart. Guilt hidden in the recesses of the conscience assumes gigantic and distorted dimensions. When the secret is shared by another, it falls back at once into its natural proportion.
Much had this man of woe endured — the feeling against him, throughout the part of the country where he now was, was vehement. The discovery of poor Alithea’s remains — the inquest, and its verdict — the unhappy lady’s funeral — had spread far and wide his accusation. It had been found necessary to take him into Carlisle by night; and even then, some few remained in waiting, and roused their fellows, and the hootings of execration were raised against him. “I end as I began,” thought Falkner; “amidst revilings and injustice — I can surely suffer now, that which was often my lot in the first dawn of boyhood.”
His examination before the magistrates was a more painful proceeding. There was no glaring injustice, no vindictive hatred here, and yet he was accused of the foulest crime in nature, and saw in many faces the belief that he was a murderer. The murderer of Alithea! He could have laughed in scorn, to think that such an idea had entered a man’s mind. She, an angel whom he worshipped — whom to save he would have met ten thousand deaths — how mad a world — how insane a system must it be, where such a thought was not scouted as soon as conceived!
Falkner had no vulgar mind. In early youth he experienced those aspirations after excellence, which betokens the finely moulded among our fellow-creatures. There was a type of virtue engraved in his heart, after which he desired to model himself. Since the hour when the consequences of his guilt revealed its true form to him — he had striven, like an eagle in an iron-bound cage, to free himself from the trammels of conscience. He felt within how much better he might be than any thing he was. But all this was unacknowledged, and uncared for, in the present scene — it was not the heroism of his soul that was inquired into, but the facts of his whereabouts; not the sacred nature of his worship for Alithea, but whether he had had opportunity to perpetrate crime. When we are conscious of innocence, what so heart-sickening as to combat circumstances that accuse us of guilt which we abhor. His prison-room was a welcome refuge, after such an ordeal.
His spirit could not be cowed by misfortune, and he felt unnaturally glad to be where he was; he felt glad to be the victim of injustice, the mark of unspeakable adversity; but his body’s strength failed to keep pace with the lofty disdain of his soul — and Elizabeth, where was she? He rejoiced that she was absent when torn from his home; he had directed the servants to say nothing to Miss Falkner — he would write; and he had meant to fulfil this promise, but each time he thought to do so, he shrunk repugnant. He would not for worlds call her to his side, to share the horrors of his lot; and feeling sure that she would be visited by some member of her father’s family, he thought it best to let things take their course — unprotected and alone, she would gladly accept refuge there where it was offered — and the tie snapped between them — happiness and love would alike smile on her.
He had it deeply at heart that she should not be mingled in the frightful details of his present situation, and yet drearily he missed her, for he loved her with a feeling, which, though not paternal, was as warm as ever filled a father’s breast. His passions were ardent, and all that could be spared from remorse, were centred in his adopted child. He had looked on her, as the prophet might on the angel, who ministered to his wants in the desert: in the abandonment of all mankind, in the desolation to which his crime had led him, she had brought love and cheer. She had been his sweet household companion, his familiar friend, his patient nurse — his soul had grown to her image, and when the place was vacant that she had filled, he was excited by eager longings for her presence, that even made his man’s heart soft as a woman’s with very desire.
By degrees, as he thought of her and the past, the heroism of his soul was undermined and weakened. To every eye he continued composed, and even cheerful, as before. None could read in his impassive countenance the misery that dwelt within. He spent his time in reading and writing, and in necessary communications with the lawyers who were to conduct his defence; and all this was done with a calm eye and unmoved voice. No token of complaint or impatience ever escaped; he seemed equal to the fortune that attacked him. He grew, indeed, paler and thinner — till his handsome features stood out in their
own expressive beauty; he might have served for a model of Prometheus — the vulture at his heart producing pangs and spasms of physical suffering; but his will unconquered — his mind refusing to acknowledge the bondage to which his body was the prey. It was an unnatural combat; for the tenderness which was blended with his fiercer passions, and made the charm of his character, sided with his enemies, and made him less able to bear, than one more roughly and hardly framed.
He loved Nature — he had spent his life among her scenes. Nothing of her visited him now, save a star or two that rose above the prison-wall into the slip of sky his window commanded; they were the faintest stars in heaven, and often were shrouded by clouds and mist. Thus doubly imprisoned, his body barred by physical impediments — his soul shut up in itself — he became, in the energetic language of genius, the cannibal of his own heart. Without a vent for any, thoughts revolved in his brain with the velocity and action of a thousand mill-wheels, and would not be stopped. Now a spasm of painful emotion covered his brow with a cold dew — now self-contempt made every portion of himself detestable in his own eyes — now he felt the curse of God upon him, weighing him down with heavy, relentless burthen; and then again he was assailed by images of freedom, and keen longings for the free air. “If even, like Mazeppa, I might seek the wilds, and career along, though death was the bourn in view, I were happy!” These wild thoughts crossed him, exaggerated into gasping desire to achieve such a fate, when the sights and sounds of a prison gathered thick around, and made the very thought of his fellow-creatures one of disgust and abhorrence.