Falkner: A Novel

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

"When every other preliminary had been gone through, it was deemed necessary that Gerard should give his evidence at the bar of the House of Lords. Sir Boyvill looked upon his lost wife as a criminal, so steeped in deserved infamy, so odious, and so justly condemned, that none could hesitate in siding with him to free him from the bondage of those laws, which, while she bore his name, might be productive of incalculable injury. His honour, too, was wounded. His honour, which he would have sacrificed his life to have preserved untainted, he had intrusted to Alithea, and loved her the more fervently that she regarded the trust with reverence. She had foully betrayed it; and must not all who respected the world's customs and the laws of social life; above all, must not any who loved him be forward to cast her out from any inheritance of good that could reach her through him?

"Above all, must not their son—his son, share his indignation, and assist his revenge? Gerard was but a boy; but his mother's tenderness, his own quick nature and lastly, the sufferings he had endured through her flight, had early developed a knowledge of the realities of life, and so keen a sense of right and justice, as made his father regard him as capable of forming opinions, and acting from such motives, as usually are little understood by one so young. And true it was that Gerard fostered sentiments independent of any teaching; and cherished ideas the more obstinately, because they were confined to his single breast. He understood the pity with which his father was regarded—the stigma cast upon his mother—the suppressed voice—the wink of the eye—the covert hint. He understood it all; and, like the poet, longed for a word, sharp as a sword, to pierce the falsehood through and through.

"For many months he and his father had seen little of each other. Sir Boyvill had not a mind that takes pleasure in watching the ingenuous sallies of childhood, or the development of the youthful mind; the idea of making a friend of his child, which had been Alithea's fond and earnest aim, could never occur to his self-engrossed heart. Since his illness, Gerard had been weakly, or he would have been sent to school. As it was, a tutor resided in the house. This person was written to by Sir Boyvill's man of business, and directed to break the matter to his pupil; to explain the formalities, to sooth and encourage any timidity he might show, and to incite him, if need were, to a desire to assist in a measure, whose operation was to render justice to his father.

"The first allusion to his mother made by Mr. Carter caused the blood to rush from the boy's heart, and to die crimson his cheeks, his temples, his throat; then he grew deadly pale, and, without uttering a word, listened to his preceptor, till suddenly taking in the nature of the task assigned to him, every limb shook, and he answered by a simple request to be left alone, and he would consider. No more was thought by the unapprehensive people about, than that he was shy of being spoken to on the subject—that he would make up his mind in his own way—and Mr. Carter at once yielded to his request; the reserve which had shrouded him since he lost his mother had accustomed those about him to habitual silence. None—no one watchful, attached, intelligent eye marked the struggles which shook his delicate frame, blanched his cheek, took the flesh from his bones, and quickened his pulse into fever. None marked him as he lay in bed the livelong night, with open eyes and beating heart a prey to contending emotion. He was passed carelessly by as he lay on the dewy grass from morn to evening, his soul torn by grief—uttering his mother's name in accents of despair, and shedding floods of tears.

"I said that these signs of intense feeling were not remarked—and yet they were, in a vulgar way, by the menials, who said it would be well when the affair was over, Master Neville took it so to heart, and was sadly frightened. Frightened! such a coarse undistinguishing name was given to the sacred terror of doing his still loved mother an injury, which heaved his breast with convulsive sobs and filled his veins with fire.

"The thought of what he was called upon to do haunted him day and night with agony. He, her nursling, her idol, her child—he who could not think of her name without tears, and dreamed often that she kissed him in his sleep, and woke to weep over the delusion—he was to accuse her before an assembled multitude—to give support to the most infamous falsehoods—to lend his voice to stigmatize her name: and wherever she was, kept from him by some irresistible power, but innocent as an angel, and still loving him, she was to hear of him as her enemy, and receive a last wound from his hand. Such appeared the task assigned to him in his eyes, for his blunt—witted tutor had spoken of the justice to be rendered his father, by freeing him from his fugitive wife, without regarding the inner heart of his pupil, or being aware that his mother sat throned there, an angel of light and goodness, the victim of ill, but doing none.

"Soon after Mrs. Neville's flight, the family had abandoned the seat in Cumberland, and inhabited a house taken near the Thames, in Buckinghamshire. Here Gerard resided, while his father was in town watching the progress of the bill. At last the day drew near when Gerard's presence was required. The peers showed a disposition, either from curiosity or a love of justice, to sift the affair to the uttermost, and the boy's testimony was declared absolutely necessary. Mr. Carter told Gerard that on the following morning they were to proceed to London, in pursuance of the circumstances which he had explained to him a few days before.

"'Is it then true,' said the boy, 'that I am to be called upon to give evidence, as you call it, against my mother?'

"'You are called upon by every feeling of duty,' replied the sapient preceptor, 'to speak the truth to those whose decision will render justice to your father. If the truth injure Mrs. Neville, that is her affair.'

"Again Gerard's cheeks burned with blushes, and his eyes, dimmed as they were with tears, flashed fire. 'In that case,' he said, 'I beg to see my father.'