Falkner: A Novel

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

As soon as he could he burst away. He rushed into the open air, and hurried to the spot where he could best combat with and purify the rebellious emotions of his heart—none but the men placed as watch were near his mother's grave. Seeing the young squire, they retreated—and he who had come on foot at such quick pace that he scarcely felt the ground he trod, threw himself on the sands, grateful to find himself alone with nature. The moon was hurrying on among the clouds—now bright in the clear ether, now darkened by heavy masses—and the mirroring ocean was sometimes alive with sparkling silver, now veiled and dim, so that you could hear, but not see, the breaking of the surge.

An eloquent author has said, in contempt of such a being: "Try to conceive a man without the ideas of God and eternity; of the good, the true, the beautiful, and the infinite." Neville was certainly not such. There was poetry in his very essence; and enthusiasm for the ideal of the excellent gave his character a peculiar charm, to any one equally exalted and refined. His mother's decaying form lay beneath the sands on which he was stretched, death was there in its most hideous form; beauty, and even form had deserted that frame-work which once was the dear being, whose caresses, so warm and fond, it yet often thrilled him to remember. He had demanded from Heaven the revelation of his mother's fate, here he found it, here in the narrow grave lay the evidence of her virtues and her death; did he thank Heaven? even while he did, he felt with bitterness that the granting of his prayer was inextricably linked with the ruin of a being, as good and fair as she whose honour he had so earnestly desired to vindicate.

He thought of all the sordid, vulgar, but heart-thrilling misery which by his means was brought on Elizabeth; and he sought his heart for excuses for the success for which he had pined. They came ready; no desire of vulgar vengeance had been his; his motives had been exalted, his conduct straightforward. The divine stamp on woman is her maternal character—it was to prove that his idolized mother had not deserted the first and most sacred duty in the world that had urged him—and he could not foresee that the innocent would suffer through his inquiries. The crime must fall on its first promoter—on Falkner's head must be heaped the consequences of his act; all else were guiltless. These reflections, however, only served to cheat his wound of its pain for a time—again other thoughts recurred, the realities, the squalid realities of the scene, in which she, miserable, was about to take a part. The thief-takers and the gyves—the prison, and the public ignominious trial—Falkner was to be subjected to all these indignities, and he well knew that his daughter would not leave his side. "And I, her son, the offspring of these sainted bones—placed here by him—how can I draw near his child! God have mercy on her, for man will have none!"

Still he could not be satisfied. "Surely," he thought, "something can be done, and something I will do. Already men are gone, who are to tear him from his home, and to deliver him up to all those vile contrivances devised for the coercion of the lowest of mankind—she will accompany him, while I must remain here. To-morrow these remains will be conveyed to our house—on the following day they are to be interred in the family vault, and I must be present—I am tied, forced to inaction—the privilege of free action taken from me."

Hope was awakened, however, as he pursued these thoughts, and recollected the generous, kindly disposition of Lady Cecil, and her attachment to her young friend. He determined to write to her. He felt assured that she would do all in her power to alleviate Elizabeth's sufferings—what she could do, he did not well understand—but it was a relief to him to take some step for the benefit of the devoted daughter. Bitterly as he thought of these things, did he regret that he had ever seen Elizabeth? So complicated was the web of event, that he knew not how to wish any event to have occurred differently; except that he had not trusted to the hollow pretences of his father. He saw at once how the generous and petty-minded can never coalesce—he ought to have acted for himself, by himself; and miserable as in any case the end must have been, he felt that his own open, honourable revenge would have been less cruel in its effects than the malicious pursuit of his vindictive father.

[CHAPTER XXXVII]

There is an impatient spirit in the young, that will not suffer them to take into consideration the pauses that occur between events. That which they do not see move, they believe to be stationary. Falkner was surprised by the silence of several days on the part of Neville; but he did not the less expect and prepare for the time, when he should be called upon to render an account for the wrong he had done. Elizabeth, on the contrary, deemed that the scene was closed, the curtain fallen. What more could arise? Neville had obtained assurance of the innocence and miserable end of his mother. In some manner this would be declared to the world; but the echo of such a voice would not penetrate the solitude in which she and her guardian were hereafter to live. Silence and exclusion were the signal and seal of discovered guilt—other punishment she did not expect. The name of Falkner had become abhorrent to all who bore any relationship to the injured Alithea. She had bid an eternal adieu to the domestic circle at Oakly—to the kind and frank-hearted Lady Cecil—and, with her, to Gerard. His mind, fraught with a thousand virtues—his heart, whose sensibility had awoke her tenderness, were shut irrevocably against her.

Did she love Gerard? This question never entered her own mind. She felt, but did not reason on, her emotions. Elizabeth was formed to be alive to the better part of love. Her enthusiasm gave ideality, her affectionate disposition warmth, to all her feelings. She loved Falkner, and that with so much truth and delicacy, yet fervour of passion, that scarcely could her virgin heart conceive a power more absolute, a tie more endearing, than the gratitude she had vowed to him; yet she intimately felt the difference that existed between her deep-rooted attachment for him she named and looked on as her father, and the spring of playful, happy, absorbing emotions that animated her intercourse with Neville. To the one she dedicated her life and services; she watched him as a mother may a child; a smile or cheerful tone of voice was warmth and gladness to her anxious bosom, and she wept over his misfortunes with the truest grief.

But there was more of the genuine attachment of mind for mind in her sentiment for Neville. Falkner was gloomy and self-absorbed. Elizabeth might grieve for, but she found it impossible to comfort him. With Gerard it was far otherwise. Elizabeth had opened in his soul an unknown spring of sympathy, to relieve the melancholy which had hitherto overwhelmed him. With her he gave way freely to the impulses of a heart which longed to mingle its hitherto checked stream of feeling with other and sweeter waters. In every way he excited her admiration as well as kindness. The poetry of his nature suggested expressions and ideas at once varied and fascinating. He led her to new and delightful studies, by unfolding to her the pages of the poets of her native country, with which she was little conversant. Except Shakspeare and Milton, she knew nothing of English poetry. The volumes of Chaucer and Spenser, of ancient date; of Pope, Gray, and Burns; and, in addition, the writings of a younger, but divine race of poets, were all opened to her by him. In music, also, he became her teacher. She was a fine musician of the German school. He introduced her to the simpler graces of song; and brought her the melodies of Moore, so "married to immortal verse," that they can only be thought of conjointly. Oh, the happy days of Oakly! How had each succeeding hour been gilded by the pleasures of a nascent passion, of the existence of which she had never before dreamed—and these were fled for ever! It was impossible to feel assured of so sad a truth, and not to weep over the miserable blight. Elizabeth commanded herself to appear cheerful, but sadness crept over her solitary hours. She felt that the world had grown, from being a copy of paradise, into a land of labour and disappointment; where self-approbation was to be gained through self-sacrifice; and duty and happiness became separate, instead of united objects at which to aim.

From such thoughts she took refuge in the society of Falkner. She loved him so truly, that she forgot her personal regrets—she forgot even Neville when with him. Her affection for her benefactor was not a stagnant pool, mantled over by memories existing in the depths of her soul, but giving no outward sign; it was a fresh spring of overflowing love—it was redundant with all the better portion of our nature—gratitude, admiration, and pity for ever fed it, as from a perennial fountain.