Falkner: A Novel

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

"When the darkness, which closed in with a furious wind and thunder-storm, rendered her prolonged absence a matter of solicitude, the servants had gone to seek her in the grounds. They found their mistress's key in the lock of a small masked gate that opened on a green lane. They went one way up the lane to meet her; but found no trace. They followed the other, with like ill success. Again they searched the park with more care; and again resorted to the lanes and fields; but in vain. The obvious idea was, that she had taken shelter from the storm; and a horrible fear presented itself, that she might have found no better retreat than a tree or hay-rick, and that she had been struck by the lightning. A slight hope remained, that she had gone along the high-road to meet her husband, and would return with him. His arrival alone took from them this last hope.

"The country was now raised. Servants and tenants were sent divers ways; some on horseback, some on foot. Though summer-time, the night was inclement and tempestuous; a furious west wind swept the earth; high trees were bowed to the ground; and the blast howled and roared, at once baffling and braving every attempt to hear cries or distinguish sounds.

"Dromore is situated in a beautiful, but wild and thinly—inhabited part of Cumberland, on the verge of the plain that forms the coast where it first breaks into uplands, dingles, and ravines; there is no high-road towards the sea—but as they took the one that led to Lancaster, they approached the ocean, and the distant roar of its breakers filled up the pauses of the gale. It was on this road, at the distance of some five miles from the house, that Gerard was found. He was lying on the road in a sort of stupor—which could be hardly called sleep—his clothes were drenched by the storm, and his limbs stiff from cold. When first found, and disturbed, he looked wildly around; and his cry was for his mother—terror was painted in his face—and his intellects seemed deranged by a sudden and terrific shock. He was taken home. His father hurried to him, questioning him eagerly—but the child only raved that his mother was being carried from him; and his pathetic cry of 'Come back, mamma—stop—stop for me!' filled every one with terror and amazement. As speedily as possible, medical assistance was sent for; the physician found the boy in a high fever, the result of fright, exposure to the storm, and subsequent sleep in his wet clothes in the open air. It was many days before his life could be answered for—or the delirium left him—and still he raved that his mother was being carried off, and would not stop for him, and often he tried to rise from his bed under the notion of pursuing her.

"At length consciousness returned—consciousness of the actual objects around him, mingled with an indistinct recollection of the events that immediately preceded his illness. His pulse was calm; his reason restored; and he lay quietly with open eyes fixed on the door of his chamber. At last he showed symptoms of uneasiness, and asked for his mother. Mr. Neville was called, as he had desired he might be the moment his son showed signs of being rational. Gerard looked up in his father's face with an expression of disappointment, and again murmured, 'Send mamma to me.'

"Fearful of renewing his fever by awakening his disquietude, his father told him that mamma was tired and asleep, and could not be disturbed.

"'Then she has come back?' he cried; 'that man did not take her quite away? The carriage drove here at last.'

"Such words renewed all their consternation. Afraid of questioning the child himself, lest he should terrify him, Mr. Neville sent the nurse who had been with him from infancy, to extract information. His story was wild and strange; and here I must remark, that the account drawn from him by the woman's questions differs somewhat from that to which he afterward adhered; though not so much in actual circumstances as in the colouring given. This his father attributes to his subsequent endeavours to clear his mother from blame; while he asserts, and I believe with truth, that time and knowledge, by giving him an insight into motives, threw a new light on the words and actions which he remembered; and that circumstances which bore one aspect to his ignorance, became clearly visible in another, when he was able to understand the real meaning of several fragments of conversation which had at first been devoid of sense.

"All that he could tell during this first stage of inquiry was, that his mother had taken him to walk with her in the grounds, that she had unlocked the gate that opened out on the lane with her own key, and that a gentleman was without waiting.

"Had he ever seen the gentleman before?

"Never; he did not know him, and the stranger took no notice of him; he heard his mamma call him Rupert.