A little recovered from her first surprise, Madame Tallien advanced toward the stranger, gave her a cordial welcome in English, and told her how happy she esteemed herself in having been the means of setting at liberty so celebrated an authoress. The Englishwoman made a polite reply to this compliment, and then they seated themselves before the fire, whose clear flame and vivifying heat were very welcome to the liberated prisoner, and quickly restored an activity of mind that appeared to have been benumbed by the coldness of her dungeon. The ensuing conversation was gay, piquant, full of charm and abandon, and was only interrupted by the orders given by Madame Tallien to her femme de chambre to send the carriage away, and deny her to all visitors.
Mrs. Radcliffe had traveled much, and related her adventures with grace and originality. Hours flew by unheeded, and the Englishwoman was in the very midst of some bold enterprise of her journey in Switzerland, when the time-piece struck twelve. She turned pale, and a visible shuddering seized her. Then pausing in her tale, she looked wildly and fearfully around, as if following the movements of some invisible being. Madame Tallien, struck with a species of vague terror, dared not address a single word to her visitor. The latter at length abruptly rose, opened the door, and with an imperative gesture ordered some one by the name of Henry to leave the room, after which she appeared to experience a sudden relief.
The lovely Frenchwoman, with the tact of real kindness, appeared not to notice this strange incident, and the new-made friends soon after separated, Madame Tallien herself conducting her guest to the apartment provided for her, where she took leave of her with an affectionate "au revoir!"
The following evening Mrs. Radcliffe appeared in her hostess's saloon, as soon as the latter had signified that she was ready to receive her. Calm and composed, habited a la Française, the English romancist appeared ten years younger than she had done the evening before, and was even not without a certain degree of beauty. She said not a word on the scene of the preceding evening; was gay, witty, amiable, and took an animated part in the conversation that followed. But as soon as the minute-hand of the time-piece pointed to half-past eleven, her color fled, a shade of pensiveness replaced her former gayety, and a few moments afterward she took her leave of the company.
The same thing happened the next day, and every ensuing evening. Madame Tallien could not avoid a feeling of curiosity, but she had too much politeness to question the stranger confided to her hospitality. In this way a month elapsed, at the end of which time Mrs. Radcliffe could not avoid expressing, one evening when she found herself alone with her new friend, her disappointment at being detained a prisoner in France, without the power of returning to her own country. Upon this Madame Tallien rose, took a paper from a desk, and handed it to the Englishwoman. It was a passport dated from the same evening that Mrs. Radcliffe had been liberated from her dungeon.
"Since you wish to leave your French friends," said her lovely hostess, smiling, "go, ingrate!"
"Oh, no, not ungrateful!" replied the authoress, taking the beautiful hands of her friend, and carrying them to her lips; "but the year is fast waning, and a solemn duty recalls me to my native land. In the church-yard of a poor village near London are two tombs, which I visit each Christmas-day with flowers and prayers. If I return not before then, this will be the first time for five years that they have been neglected. You already know all my other secrets," she continued, lowering her voice; "it is my intention to confide this secret also to your friendly ears." Passing her hand across her brow, the Englishwoman then proceeded to relate a strange and tragic tale, for the particulars of which we have not space in our limited sketch. Suffice it to say, that it had left our authoress subject to a distressing and obstinate spectral illusion. In the reality of this appearance she firmly believed, not having sufficient knowledge of science to attribute her visitation to its true origin—a partial disarrangement of the nervous system. This visitation regularly recurred at midnight, and at once accounted for the singular behavior that had so piqued the benevolent Frenchwoman's curiosity.
Mrs. Radcliffe now returned to London, where she shortly afterward published "The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents."
We can, in our day, realize to ourselves very little of the effect produced by Anne Radcliffe's romances at the time of their appearance. All the contemporary critics agree in testifying to their immense success, only inferior to that of the Waverley novels in more recent times. Now they appear nothing more than the efflux of a morbid imagination, full of hallucinations and absurdities, and insufferably tedious to our modern tastes, accustomed to the condensed writing of the present day. Their unconnected plots are nevertheless not altogether devoid of a certain sort of interest, and are fraught with picturesque situations and melodramatic surprises. The living characters therein introduced present few natural features. We recognize every where the caprices of an unbridled fancy, and a prevailing vitiation of sense and taste.
Anne Radcliffe died near London, on the 7th February, 1823, at the age of 63. The "New Monthly Magazine," for May of that year, announces her decease, and affirms that her death was accompanied by singular visions, which had pursued her ever since a romantic event of her youth.