Falkner: A Novel

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

"But marriage too soon changed Sir Boyvill for the worse. Close intimacy disclosed the distortions of his character. He was a vain and a selfish man. Both qualities rendered him exacting in the extreme; and the first gave birth to the most outrageous jealousy. Alithea was too ingenuous for him to be able to entertain suspicions; but his jealousy was nourished by the difference of their age and temper. She was nineteen—in the first bloom of loveliness—in the freshest spring of youthful spirits—too innocent to suspect his doubts—too kind in her most joyous hour to fancy that she could offend. He was a man of the world—a thousand times had seen men duped and women deceive. He did not know of the existence of a truth as spotless and uncompromising as existed in Alithea's bosom. He imagined that he was marked out as the old husband of a young wife; he feared that she would learn that she might have married more happily; and, desirous of engrossing her all to himself, a smile spent on another was treason to the absolute nature of his rights. At first she was blind to his bad qualities. A thousand times he frowned when she was gay—a thousand times ill-humour and cutting reproofs were the results of her appearing charming to others, before she discovered the selfish and contemptible nature of his passion, and became aware that, to please him, she must blight and uproot all her accomplishments, all her fascinations; that she must for ever curb her wish to spread happiness around; that she, the very soul of generous, unsuspecting goodness, must become cramped in a sort of bed of Procrustes, now having one portion lopped off, and then another, till the maimed and half-alive remnant should resemble the soulless, niggard tyrant, whose every thought and feeling centred in his Lilliputian self. That she did at last make this discovery, cannot be doubted; though she never disclosed her disappointment, nor complained of the tyranny from which she suffered. She grew heedful not to displease, guarded in her behaviour to others, and so accommodated her manner to his wishes, as showed that she feared, but concealed that she no longer esteemed him. A new reserve sprang up in her character, which, after all, was not reserve; for it was only the result of her fear to give pain, and of her unalterable principles. Had she spoken of her husband's faults, it would have been to himself—but she had no spirit of governing—and quarrelling and contention were the antipodes of her nature. If, indeed, this silent yielding to her husband's despotism was contrary to her original frankness, it was a sacrifice made to what she esteemed her duty, and never went beyond the silence which best becomes the injured.

"It cannot be doubted that she was alive to her husband's faults. Generous, she was restrained by his selfishness; enthusiastic, she was chilled by his worldly wisdom; sympathetic, she was rebuked by a jealousy that demanded every feeling. She was like a poor bird, that with untired wing would mount gayly to the skies, when on each side the wires of the aviary impede its flight. Still it was her principle that we ought not to endeavour to form a destiny for ourselves, but to act well our part on the scene where Providence has placed us. She reflected seriously, and perhaps sadly, for the first time in her life; and she formed a system for herself, which would give the largest extent to the exercise of her natural benevolence, and yet obviate the suspicions and cure the fears of her narrow-minded, self-engrossed husband.

"In pursuance of her scheme, she made it her request that they should take up their residence entirely at their seat in the north of England; giving up London society, and transforming herself altogether into a country lady. In her benevolent schemes, in the good she could there do, and in the few friends she could gather round her, against whom her husband could form no possible objection, she felt certain of possessing a considerable share of rational happiness—exempt from the hurry and excitement of town, for which her sensitive and ardent mind rendered her very unfit, under the guidance of a man who at once desired that she should hold a foremost place, and was yet disturbed by the admiration which she elicited. Sir Boyvill complied with seeming reluctance, but real exultation. He possesses a delightful seat in the southern part of Cumberland. Here, amid a simple-hearted peasantry, and in a neighbourhood where she could cultivate many social pleasures, she gave herself up to a life which would have been one of extreme happiness, had not the exactions, the selfishness, the uncongenial mind of Sir Boyvill debarred her from the dearest blessings of all—sympathy and friendship with the partner of her life.

"Still she was contented. Her temper was sweet and yielding. She did not look on each cross in circumstance as an injury or a misfortune; but rather as a call on her philosophy, which it was her duty to meet cheerfully. Her heart was too warm not to shrink with pain from her husband's ungenerous nature, but she had a resource, to which she gave herself up with ardour. She turned the full but checked tide of affections from her husband to her son. Gerard was all in all to her—her hope, her joy, her idol, and he returned her love with more than a child's affection. His sensibility developed early, and she cultivated it perhaps too much. She wished to secure a friend—and the temptation afforded by the singular affectionateness of his disposition and his great intelligence was too strong. Mr. Neville strongly objected to the excess to which she carried her maternal cares, and augured ill of the boy's devotion to her; but here his interference was vain, the mother could not alter; and the child, standing at her side, eyed his father even then with a sort of proud indignation, on his daring to step in between them.

"To Mrs. Neville, this boy was as an angel sent to comfort her. She could not bear that any one should attend on him except herself—she was his playmate and instructress. When he opened his eyes from sleep, his mother's face was the first he saw; she hushed him to rest at night—did he hurt himself, she flew to his side in agony—did she utter one word of tender reproach, it curbed his childish passions on the instant—he seldom left her side, but she was young enough to share his pastimes—her heart overflowed with its excess of love, and he, even as a mere child, regarded her as something to protect, as well as worship.

"Mr. Neville was angry, and often reproved her too great partiality, though by degrees it won some favour in his eyes. Gerard was his son and heir, and he might be supposed to have a share in the affection lavished on him. He respected, also, the absence of frivolous vanity that led her to be happy with her child—contented away from London—satisfied in fulfilling the duties of her station, though his eyes only were there to admire. He persuaded himself that there must exist much latent attachment towards himself, to reconcile her to this sort of exile; and her disinterestedness received the reward of his confidence—he who never before believed or respected woman. He began to yield to her more than he was wont, and to consider that he ought now and then to show some approbation of her conduct.

"When Gerard was about six years old, they went abroad on a tour. Travelling was a mode of passing the time that accorded well with Mr. Neville's matrimonial view of keeping his wife to himself. In the travelling carriage, he only was beside her; in seeing sights, he, who had visited Italy before, and had some taste, could guide and instruct her; and short as their stay in each town was, there was no possibility of forming serious attachments or lasting friendships; at the same time, his vanity was gratified by seeing his wife and son admired by strangers and natives. While abroad, Mrs. Neville bore another child, a little girl. This added greatly to her domestic happiness. Her husband grew extremely fond of his baby daughter; there was too much difference of age to set her up as a rival to Gerard; she was by contradistinction the father's darling, it is true; but this rather produced harmony than discord—for the mother loved both children too well to feel hurt by the preference; and, softened by having an object he really loved to lavish his favour on, Sir Boyvill grew much more of a tender father and indulgent husband than he had hitherto shown himself."

[CHAPTER XVII]

"It was not until a year after their return from abroad that the events happened which terminated so disastrously Mrs. Neville's career in her own family. I am perplexed how to begin the narration, the story is so confused and obscure; the mystery that envelops the catastrophe so impenetrable; the circumstances that we really know so few, and these gleaned, as it were, ear by ear, as dropped in the passage of the event; so making, if you will excuse my rustic metaphor, a meager, ill-assorted sheaf. Mrs. Neville had been a wife nearly ten years; never had she done one act that could be disapproved by the most circumspect; never had she swerved from that veracity and open line of conduct which was a safeguard against the mingled ardour and timidity of her disposition. It required extraordinary circumstances to taint her reputation, as, to say the least, it is tainted; and we are still in the dark as to the main instrument by which these circumstances were brought about. Their result is too obvious. At one moment Mrs. Neville was an honoured and beloved wife; a mother, whose heart's pulsations depended on the well-being of her children; and whose fond affection was to them as the sun's warmth to the opening flower. At the next, where is she? Silence and mystery wrap her from us; and surmise is busy in tracing shapes of infamy from the fragments of truth that we can gather.

"On the return of the family from abroad, they again repaired to their seat of Dromore; and, at the time to which I allude, Mr. Neville had left them there, to go to London on business. He went for a week; but his stay was prolonged to nearly two months. He heard regularly from his wife. Her letters were more full of her children and household than herself; but they were kind; and her maternal heart warmed, as she wrote, into anticipations of future happiness in her children, greater even than she now enjoyed. Every line breathed of home and peace; every word seemed to emanate from a mind in which lurked no concealed feeling, no one thought unconfessed or unapproved. To such a home, cheered by so much beauty and excellence, Sir Boyvill returned, as he declares, with eager and grateful affection. The time came when he was expected at home; and true, both to the day and to the hour, he arrived. It was at eleven at night. His carriage drove through the grounds; the doors of the house were thrown open; several eager faces were thrust forward with more of curiosity and anxiety than is at all usual in an English household; and as he alighted, the servants looked aghast, and exchanged glances of terror. The truth was soon divulged. At about six in the evening, Mrs. Neville, who dined early in the absence of her husband, had gone to walk in the park with Gerard; since then, neither had returned.