by Mary Shelley
The day that the judges arrived, Elizabeth presented herself in Falkner’s cell — a letter in her hand — her first words announced good tidings; yet she was agitated, tearful — something strange and awful had surely betided. It was a letter from Neville that she held, and gave to Falkner to read.
“I shall soon be in Carlisle, my dearest friend, but this letter will out-speed me, and bring you the first intelligence of my poor father’s death. Thank God, I did my duty by him to the last — thank God, he died in peace — in peace with me and the whole world. The uneasiness of pain yielded at first to torpor, and thus we feared he would die; but before his death he recovered himself for an hour or two, and though languid and feeble, his mind was clear. How little, dear Elizabeth, do we know of our fellow-creatures — each shrouded in the cloak of manner — that cloak of various dyes — displays little of the naked man within. We thought my father vain, selfish, and cruel — he was all this, but he was something else that we knew not of — he was generous, humane, humble — these qualities he hid as if they had been vices — he struggled with them — pride prevented him from recognizing them as the redeeming points of a faulty nature; he despised himself for feeling them, until he was on his death-bed.
“Then, in broken accents, he asked me, his only son, to pardon his mistakes and cruelties — he asked me to forgive him, in my dear mother’s name — he acknowledged his injustices towards her. ‘Would that I might live,’ he said; ‘for my awakened conscience urges me to repair a portion of the evils I have caused — but it is too late. Strange that I should never have given ear to the whisperings of justice — though they were often audible — till now, when there is no help! — Yet is it so? cannot some reparation be made? There is one’ — and as he spoke he half raised himself, and some of the wonted fire flashed from his glazed eye — but he sunk back again, saying in a low but distinct voice, ‘Falkner — Rupert Falkner — he is innocent, I know and feel his innocence — yet I have striven to bring him to the death. Let me record my belief that his tale is true, and that Alithea died the victim of her own heroism, not by his hand. Gerard, remember, report these words — save him — his sufferings have been great — promise me — that I may feel that God and Alithea will forgive me, as I forgive him; I act now, as your mother would have had me act; I act to please her.’
“I speak it without shame, my eyes ran over with tears, and this softening of a proud heart before the remembered excellence of one so long dead, so long thought of with harshness and resentment, was the very triumph of the good spirit of the world; yet tears were all the thanks I could give for several minutes. He saw that I was moved — but his strength was fast leaving him, and pressing my hand and murmuring, ‘My last duty is now performed — I will sleep,’ he turned away his head; he never spoke more, except to articulate my name, and once or twice, as his lips moved, and I bent down to listen, I heard the name of my mother breathed at the latest hour.
“I cannot write more — the trial will take place, I am told, immediately — before the funeral. I shall be in Carlisle — all will go well, dear Elizabeth — and when we meet again, happier feelings will be ours. God bless you now and always, as you deserve.”
CHAPTER XVI.
All things now assumed an anxious aspect; all was hurrying to a conclusion. To-morrow the trial was to come on. “Security” is not a word for mortal man to use, more especially when the issue of an event depends on the opinions and actions of his fellow-creatures. Falkner’s acquittal was probable, but not certain; even if the impression went in general in his favour, a single juryman might hold out, and perverseness, added to obstinacy, would turn the scale against him. Sickening fears crept over Elizabeth’s heart; she endeavoured to conceal them; she endeavoured to smile and repeat, “This is our last day of bondage.”
Falkner cast no thought upon the worst — innocence shut out fear. He could not look forward to the ignominy of such a trial without acute suffering; yet there was an austere composure in his countenance, that spoke of fortitude and reliance on a power beyond the limit of human influence. His turn had come to encourage Elizabeth. There was a nobleness and simplicity of character, common to both, that made them very intelligible to each other. Falkner, however, had long been nourishing secret thoughts and plans, of which he had made no mention, till now, the crisis impending, he thought it best to lift a portion of the veil that covered the future.
“Yes,” he said, in reply to Elizabeth, “to-morrow will be the last day of slavery; I regain my human privileges after to-morrow, and I shall not be slow to avail myself of them. My first act will be to quit this country. I have never trod its soil but to find misery; after to-morrow I leave it for ever.”
Elizabeth started, and looked inquiringly: Were her wishes, her destiny to have no influence over his plans? he knew of the hope, the affection, that rendered England dear to her. Falkner took her hand. “You will join me hereafter, dearest; but you will, in the first instance, yield to my request, and consent to a separation for a time.”
“Never!” said Elizabeth; “you cannot deceive me; you act thus for my purposes, and not your own, and you misconceive everything. We will never part.”
“Daughters, when they marry,” observed Falkner, “leave father, mother, all, and follow the fortunes of their husbands. You must submit to the common law of human society.”
“Do not ask me to reason with you and refute your arguments,” replied Elizabeth; “our position is different from that of any other parent and child. I will not say I owe you more than daughter ever owed father — perhaps the sacred tie of blood may stand in place of the obligations you have heaped on me; but I will not reason; I cannot leave you. Right or wrong in the eyes of others, my own heart would perpetually reproach me. I should image your solitary wanderings, your lonely hours of sickness and suffering, and my peace of mind would be destroyed.”
“It is true,” said Falkner, “that I am more friendless than most men; yet I am not so weak and womanish that I need perpetual support. Your society is dear to me, dearer, God, who reads my heart, knows, than liberty or life; I shall return to that society, and again enjoy it; but, for a time, do not fear but that I can form such transitory ties as will prevent solitary suffering. Men and women abound who will feel benevolently towards the lonely stranger: money purchases respect; blameless manners win kindness. I shall find friends in my need if I desire it, and I shall return at last to you.”
“My dearest father,” said Elizabeth, “you cannot deceive me. I penetrate your motives, but you wholly mistake. You would force me also to mistake your character, but I know you too well. You never form transitory friendships; you take no pleasure in the ordinary run of human intercourse. You inquire; you seek for instruction; you endeavour to confer benefits; but you have no happiness except such as you derive from your heart, and that is not easily impressed. Did you not for many long years continue faithful to one idea — adhere to one image — devote yourself to one, one only, despite all that separated you? Did not the impediment you found to the fulfilment of your visions, blight your whole life, and bring you here? Pardon me if I allude to these things. I cannot be to you what she was, but you can no more banish me from your heart and imagination than you could her. I know that you cannot. We are not parent and child,” she continued playfully, “but we have a strong resemblance on one point — fidelity is our characteristic; we will not speak of this to others, they might think that we boasted. I am not quite sure that it is not a defect: at least in some cases, as with you, it proved a misfortune. To me it can never be such; it repays itself. I cannot leave you, whatever befalls. If Gerard Neville is hereafter lost to me, I cannot help it; it would kill me to fall off from you. I must follow the natural, the irresistible bent of my character.
“To-morrow, the day after to-morrow, we will speak more of this. What is necessary for your happiness, be assured, I will fulfil without repining; but now, dearest father, let us not speak of the future now; my heart is too f
ull of the present — the future appears to me a dream never to be arrived at. Oh, how more than blest I shall be when the future, the long future, shall grow into interest and importance!”
They were interrupted. One person came in, and then another, and the appalling details of the morrow effectually banished all thoughts of plans, the necessity of which Falkner wished to impress on his young companion. He also was obliged to give himself up to present cares. He received all, he talked to all, with a serious but unembarrassed air; while Elizabeth sat shuddering by, wiping away her tears unseen, and turning her dimmed eyes from one to the other, pale and miserable. We have fortitude and resignation for ourselves; but when those beloved are in peril we can only weep and pray. Sheltered in a dusky corner, a little retreated behind Falkner, she watched, she listened to all, and her heart almost broke. “Leave him! after this leave him!” she thought, “a prey to such memories? Oh, may all good angels desert me when I become so vile a wretch!”
The hour came when they must part. She was not to see him on the morrow, until the trial was over; for her presence during the preliminary scenes, was neither fitting nor practicable. Already great indulgences had been granted to the prisoner, arising from his peculiar position, the great length of time since the supposed crime had been committed, and the impression, now become general, that he was innocent. But this had limits — the morrow was to decide all, and send him forth free and guiltless, or doom him to all the horrors of condemnation and final suffering.
Their parting was solemn. Neither indulged in grief. Falkner felt composed — Elizabeth endeavoured to assume tranquillity; but her lips quivered, and she could not speak; it was like separating not to meet for years; a few short hours, and she would look again upon his face — but how much would happen in the interval! — how mighty a change have occurred! What agony would both have gone through! the one picturing, the other enduring, the scene of the morrow; the gaze of thousands — the accusation — the evidence — the defence — the verdict — each of these bearing with it to the well-born and refined, a barbed dart, pregnant with thrilling poison; ignominy added to danger. How Elizabeth longed to express to the assembled world the honour in which she held him, whom all looked on as overwhelmed with disgrace; how she yearned to declare the glory she took in the ties that bound them, and the affection that she bore! She must be mute — but she felt all this to bursting; and her last words, “Best of men! excellent, upright, noble, generous, God will preserve you and restore you to me!” expressed in some degree the swelling emotions of her soul.
They parted. Night and silence gathered round Falkner’s pillow. With stoical firmness he banished retrospect — he banished care. He laid his hopes and fears at the feet of that Almighty Power, who holds earth and all it contains in the hollow of his hand, and he would trouble himself no more concerning the inevitable though unknown decree. His thoughts were at first solemn and calm; and then, as the human mind can never, even in torture, fix itself unalterably on one point, milder and more pleasing reveries presented themselves. He thought of himself as a wild yet not worthless schoolboy — he remembered the cottage porch clustered over with odoriferous parasites, under whose shadow sat the sick, pale lady, with her starry eyes and wise lessons, and her radiant daughter, whose soft hand he held as they both nestled close at her feet. He recalled his wanderings with that daughter over hill and dale, when their steps were light, and their hearts, unburthened with a care, soared to that heaven which her blessed spirit had already reached. Oh, what is life, that these dreams of youth and innocence should have conducted her to an untimely grave — him to a felon’s cell! The thought came with a sharp pang; again he banished it, and the land of Greece, his perils, and his wanderings with Elizabeth on the shores of Zante, now replaced his other memories. He then bore a burthen on his heart, which veiled with dark crape the glories of a sunny climate, the heart-cheering tenderness of his adopted child — this was less bitter, this meeting of fate, this atonement. Sleep crept over him at last, and such is the force of innocence, that though a cloud of agony hung over his awakening, yet he slept peacefully on the eve of his trial.
Towards morning his sleep became less tranquil. He moved — he groaned — then opening his eyes he started up, struggling to attain full consciousness of where he was, and wherefore. He had been dreaming — and he asked himself what had been the subject of his dreams. Was it Greece — or the dreary waste shores of Cumberland? And why did that fair lingering shape beckon him? Was it Alithea or Elizabeth? Before these confused doubts could be solved, he recognized the walls of the cell — and saw the shadow of the bars of his windows on the curtain spread before it. It was morning — the morning — where would another sun find him?
He rose and drew aside the curtain — and there were the dark, high walls — weather-stained and huge; — clear, but sunless day-light was spread over each object — it penetrated every nook, and yet was devoid of cheer. There is indeed something inexpressibly desolate in the sight of the early, grey, chill dawn dissipating the shadows of night, when the day which it harbingers is to bring misery. Night is a cloak — a shelter — a defence — all men sleep at night — the law sleeps, and its dread ministrants are harmless in their beds, hushed like cradled children. “Even now they sleep,” thought Falkner, “pillowed and curtained in luxury — but day is come, and they will soon resume their offices — and drag me before them — and wherefore? — because it is day — because it is Wednesday — because names have been given to portions of time, which otherwise might be passed over and forgotten.”
To the surgeon’s eye, a human body sometimes presents itself merely as a mass of bones, muscles, and arteries — though that human body may contain a soul to emulate Shakespear — and thus there are moments when the wretched dissect the forms of life — and contemplating only the outward semblance of events, wonder how so much power of misery, or the reverse, resides in what is after all but sleeping or waking — walking here or walking there — seeing one fellow-creature instead of another. Such were the morbid sensations that absorbed Falkner as day grew clearer and clearer — the narrow court more gloomy as compared with the sky, and the objects in his cell assumed their natural colour and appearances. “All sleep,” he again thought, “except I, the sufferer; and does my own Elizabeth sleep? Heaven grant it, and guard her slumbers! May those dear eyes long remain closed in peace upon this miserable day!”
He dressed himself long before any one in the prison (and gaolers are early risers) was awake; at last there were steps in the passage — bolts were drawn and voices heard. These familiar sounds recalled him to actual life, and approaching, inevitable events. His haughty soul awoke again — a dogged pride steeled his heart — he remembered the accusation — the execration in which he believed himself to be held — and his innocence. “Retribution or atonement — I am ready to pay it as it is demanded of me for Alithea’s sake — but the injustice of man is not lessened on this account; henceforth I am to be stamped with ignominy — and yet in what am I worse than my fellows? — at least they shall not see that my spirit bends before them.”
He assumed cheerfulness, and bore all the preliminaries of preparation with apparent carelessness; sometimes his eagle eye flashed fire — sometimes, fixed on vacancy, a whole life of memories passed across his mental vision; but there was no haste, no trepidation, no faltering — he never thought of danger or of death — innocence sustained him. The ignominy of the present was all that he felt that he had to endure and master — that, and the desolation beyond, when branded through life as he believed he should be, even by acquittal, he was henceforth to be looked on as an outcast.
At length he was led forth to his trial — pride in his heart — resolution in his eye; he passed out of the gloomy portal of the prison, and entered the sun-lit street — houses were around; but through an opening he caught a glimpse of the country — uplands and lawny fields, and tree-crested hills — the work of God himself. Sunshine rested on the scene — on
e used to liberty had regarded with contempt the restricted view presented by the opening; but to the prisoner, who for months had only seen his prison-walls, it seemed as if the creation lay unrolled in its majesty before him. What was man in comparison with the power that upheld the earth, and bade the sun to shine? And man was to judge him? What mockery! Man and all his works were but a plaything in the hands of Omnipotence, and to that Falkner submitted his destiny. He rose above the degrading circumstances around him; he looked down upon his fate — a real, a lofty calm at last possessed his soul; he felt that nought said or done that day by his fellow-creatures could move him; his reliance was elsewhere — it rested on his own innocence, and his intimate sense that he was in no more danger now, than if sheltered in the farthest, darkest retreat, unknown to man; he walked as if surrounded by an atmosphere which no storms from without could penetrate.
He entered the court with a serene brow, and so much dignity added to a look that expressed such entire peace of conscience, that every one who beheld him became prepossessed in his favour. His distinct, calm voice declaring himself “Not Guilty;” the confidence, untinged by vaunting, with which he uttered the customary appeal to God and his Country, excited admiration at first, and then, when a second sentiment could be felt, the most heart-moving pity. Such a man, so unstained by vice, so raised above crime, had never stood there before; accustomed to the sight of vulgar rogues or hardened ruffians, wonder was mingled with a certain self-examination, which made each man feel that, if justice were done, he probably deserved more to be in that dock than the prisoner.
And then they remembered that he stood there to be consigned to life or death, as the jury should decide. A breathless interest was awakened, not only in the spectators, but even in those hardened by habit to scenes like this. Every customary act of the court was accompanied by a solemnity unfelt before. The feeling, indeed, that reigned was something more than solemn; thirsting curiosity and eager wonder gave way before thrilling awe, to think that that man might be condemned to an ignominious end.