To their astonishment, this proved the last day of Mr. Byerley’s imprisonment. The strenuous exertions of his friends, the interference of the English ambassador, and especially, the important fact that there was no evidence against him beyond the suspicions of a spy, availed to release him from his jail; but not altogether from injustice. He was ordered to quit Tours in twenty-four hours, and to embark immediately from the nearest port, whither he was to be escorted by two gens d’arme.
CHAPTER XII.
Sense with Sensibility.
It was not till Mr. Byerley had returned to his friend’s house, and was placed in the midst of its quietness and comforts, that he became aware how his health and spirits had been shaken by the events of the last fortnight. He felt weary and feverish, and the excitement of his nerves was evident to every one near him. Mr. Fletcher was anxious that his departure should be delayed till he should be better able to bear the fatigue of travelling; but Mr. Byerley would not allow any mention of the subject to be made to M. Béranger, or to any of the authorities. He would ask no favour where he knew himself to be treated with injustice; and besides, he was impatient to leave a place where he had suffered so much. Mary also advocated his departure, knowing that his health was always benefited by a voyage. She intended, of course, to accompany him. The most difficult question was, what should be done with Anna? There was no hope of her being of any use, and her presence was now agitating to her father. Her return would also preclude all hope of the benefit to be derived from change of scene and society, and would put an end at once to Madame Mesnil’s influence over her. The Fletchers urged her remaining with them; declaring that the late events had disgusted them with their present abode, and that they should soon proceed to Paris, and in a few months afterwards, to England. It was determined that, if Anna would consent, she should be left behind, under the care of her kind friends, and attended by Susan.
The mere proposal of any plan was now certain to rouse Anna’s opposition; but, though she wept over the hardship of being separated from her father, she was, in reality, glad to be relieved from the responsibilities of her filial duty, and to remain, for a time, near Madame Mesnil. Saying, therefore, that she would submit if she could, and really mistaking her selfishness for resignation, she showed her filial affection by making her father miserable with her inexhaustible tears. Mary, mean while, having established her father on a sofa, was packing up, and settling all their little affairs, while Mr. Fletcher procured passports, and his wife made every provision for the comfort of the voyage which the shortness of the time allowed.
A letter arrived this day from Signor Elvi, who had heard with consternation of the arrest of his friend. His purpose in writing was to cheer the prisoner with hopes of release and of a return to his own free and happy country, whose institutions were praised as they deserved to be by one who had suffered so cruelly from the despotism which desolated his own land. Though Mr. Byerley was no longer a prisoner when this letter reached him, he was not the less in need of being cheered; and he was cheered, except by one passage, which it afflicted him to read, while he reproached himself for his selfish regret.
“I have earnestly desired, my friend, to aid you; I have mourned that I could not aid you, by hastening to fling wide your prison doors. There is but one way in which such exiles as I, stripped of all we possessed, can aid those who suffer injustice. It is by struggling for liberty, wherever a struggle can be maintained. Such assistance I am hastening to give. I cannot release the victims of tyranny from their chains, or recall the spirits of the martyrs to liberty; but I can defend those principles by whose prevalence the captivity of the innocent shall, at length, cease, and the heads of the noble shall be crowned with honour instead of being rolled in the dust. I go to defend these principles in another land, in a distant continent of the globe. Should you set your foot in safety once more on your native strand, as I trust you will, I shall not be there to welcome you, as your friendly hand once welcomed me. It may be that you will hear of me no more, though I will not willingly relinquish the privilege of your correspondence. If you should hear of my fall, mourn not for me; for you know that I look for better things beyond the grave than rest for the weary, and a release from the troublings of the wicked: yes—for perfect love and perfect peace. What would our life below become without the love of the virtuous, and the peace which it instils! So deeply am I conscious of this, that I cannot feel myself wholly unhappy while I bear with me the remembrance of your friendship and of the sympathy of your daughters. Confiding that it will be mine while I live, it is with mingled pleasure and regret that I dwell on the hours that I have spent with you and them; and bid you all a present—it may be a long—farewell.”
“He will fall, like hundreds of his companions, obscurely, and perhaps uselessly,” cried Mr. Byerley. “Oh! what an insatiable Moloch is war!”
“So,” thought Mary, “pass away the pleasures of this world. We shall see Elvi no more; but, thank God! we have known him, and may recognize him hereafter, when it may be our delight to sympathize more warmly in his joys than hitherto in his griefs.”
Towards evening, Mr. Byerley’s indisposition appeared to increase, so that it was determined that he should not pass the night unwatched. As this was Anna’s last opportunity of ministering to him, and as Mary had the fatigues of an anxious journey in prospect, it was agreed that Mr. Byerley should be given into Anna’s charge. Mary retired to rest early, and her sister stationed herself with Susan in a dressing-room which opened on one side to her father’s apartment, and on the other to the stairs. About midnight, her charge appeared, at length, to sleep quietly; and when one and two o’clock struck, the watchers still heard, through the open door, that his breathing was that of deep repose. Anna was reading, or seeming to read, and her attendant at work; and neither of them spoke or made the slightest noise. After a while, it seemed that Mr. Byerley was stirring; and in a moment, before Anna could rise from her seat, he stood in the doorway, looking wildly about him, and making confused attempts to speak.
Anna fell back in her chair, and her shriek rang through the house. Susan scarcely knew which to attend to first, the nurse or the patient; but Mary was on the spot instantly to assist. Mr. Byerley had risen in his sleep, as his children knew he occasionally did when under nervous indisposition. Anna’s shriek awoke him effectually, and shook him much more than his sudden appearance had disturbed her. Mary reproached herself with having left him, and sat by his bedside till Mrs. Fletcher came at six o’clock to insist on her taking a few hours’ rest before her departure.