Falkner: A Novel

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

To England! such a word Falkner had never before spoken—Miss Jervis looked almost surprised, and really pleased. A return to her native country, so long deserted, and almost forgotten, was an event to excite Elizabeth even to agitation—the very name was full of so many associations. Were they hereafter to reside there? Should they visit Treby? What was about to happen? She was bid ask no questions, and she obeyed—but her thoughts were the more busy. She remembered, also, that Neville was English, and she looked forward to meeting him, and renewing her projects for his welfare.

[CHAPTER VIII]

In the human heart, and, if observation does not err, more particularly in the heart of man, the passions exert their influence fitfully. With some analogy to the laws which govern the elements, they now sleep in calm, and now arise with the violence of furious winds. Falkner had latterly attained a state of feeling approaching to equanimity. He displayed more cheerfulness—a readier interest in the daily course of events—a power to give himself up to any topic discussed in his presence; but this had now vanished. Gloom sat on his brow—he was inattentive even to Elizabeth. Sunk back in the carriage—his eyes bent on vacancy, he was the prey of thoughts, each of which had the power to wound.

It was a melancholy journey. And when they arrived in London, Falkner became still more absorbed and wretched. The action of remorse, which had been for some time suspended, renewed its attacks, and made him look upon himself as a creature at once hateful and accursed. We are such weak beings, that the senses have power to impress us with a vividness which no mere mental operation can produce. Falkner had been at various times haunted by the probable consequences of his guilt on the child of his victim. He recollected the selfish and arrogant character of his father; and conscience had led him to reproach himself with the conviction, that whatever virtues young Neville derived from his mother, or had been implanted by her care, must have been rooted out by the neglect or evil example of his surviving parent. The actual effect of her loss he had not anticipated. There was something heart-breaking to see a youth, nobly gifted by nature and fortune, delivered over to a sullen resentment for unmerited wrongs—to dejection, if not to despair. An uninterested observer must deeply compassionate him; Elizabeth had done so, child as she was, with a pity almost painful from its excess; what, then, must he feel who knew himself to be the cause of all his wo?

Falkner was not a man to sit quietly under these emotions. In their first onset they had driven him to suicide; preserved as by a miracle, he had exerted strong self-command, and, by dint of resolution, forced himself to live. Year after year had passed, and he abided by the sentence of life he had passed on himself—and, like the galley-slave, the iron which had eaten into the flesh galled less than when newly applied. But he was brought back from the patience engendered by custom at the sight of the unfortunate boy. He felt himself accursed—God-reprobated—mankind (though they knew it not) abhorred him. He would no longer live—for he deserved to die. He would not again raise his hand against himself—but there are many gates to the tomb; he found no difficulty in selecting one by which to enter. He resolved to enter upon a scene of desperate warfare in a distant country, and to seek a deliverance from the pains of life by the bullet or the sword on the field of battle. Above all, he resolved that Elizabeth's innocence should no longer be associated with his guilt. The catastrophe he meditated must be sought alone, and she, whom he had lived to protect and foster, must be guarded from the hardships and perils to which he was about to deliver himself up.

Meditation on this new course absorbed him for some days. At first he had been sunk in despondency; as the prospect opened before him of activity allied to peril, and sought for the sake of the destruction to which it unavoidably led, his spirits rose; like a war-horse dreaming of the sound of a trumpet, his heart beat high in the hope of forgetting the consciousness of remorse in all the turbulence of battle or the last forgetfulness of the grave. Still it was a difficult task to impart his plan to the orphan, and to prepare her for a separation. Several times he had tried to commence the subject, and felt his courage fail him. At length, being together one day, some weeks after their arrival in London—when, indeed, many steps had been already taken by him in furtherance of his project—at twilight, as they sat together near the window which looked upon one of the London squares—and they had been comparing this metropolis with many foreign cities—Falkner abruptly, fearful, if he lost this occasion, of not finding another so appropriate, said, "I must bid you good-by to-night, Elizabeth—to-morrow, early, I set out for the north of England."

"You mean to leave me behind?" she asked; "but you will not be away long?"

"I am going to visit your relations," he replied; "to disclose to them that you are under my care, and to prepare them to receive you. I hope soon to return, either to conduct you to them, or to bring one among them to welcome you here."

Elizabeth was startled. Many years had elapsed since Falkner had alluded to her alien parentage. She went by his name, she called him father; and the appellation scarcely seemed a fiction—he had been the kindest, fondest parent to her—nor had he ever hinted that he meant to forego the claim his adoption had given him, and to make her over to those who were worse than strangers in her eyes. If ever they had recurred to her real situation, he had not been chary of expressions of indignation against the Raby family. He had described with warm resentment the selfishness, the hardness of heart, and disdain of the well-being of those allied to them by blood, which too often subsists in aristocratic English families when the first bond has been broken by any act of disobedience. He grew angry as he spoke of the indignity with which her mother had been treated, and the barbarous proposition of separating her from her only child; and he had fondly assured her that it was his dearest pride to render her independent of these unworthy and inhuman relations. Why were his intentions changed? His voice and look were ominous. Elizabeth was hurt—she did not like to object; she was silent—but Falkner deciphered her wounded feelings in her ingenuous countenance, and he too was pained; he could not bear that she should think him ungrateful—mindless of her affection, her filial attentions, and endearing virtues; he felt that he must, to a certain degree, explain his views—difficult as it was to make a segment of his feelings in any way take a definite or satisfactory shape.

"Do not think hardly of me, my own dear girl," he began, "for wishing that we should separate. God knows that it is a blow that will visit me far more severely than you. You will find relations and friends who will be proud of you—whose affections you will win; wherever you are, you will meet with love and admiration—and your sweet disposition and excellent qualities will make life happy. I depart alone. You are my only tie—my only friend—I break it and leave you—never can I find another. Henceforth, alone, I shall wander into distant and uncivilized countries, enter on a new and perilous career, during which I may perish miserably. You cannot share these dangers with me."