by Mary Shelley
CHAPTER V.
“You know that I did not find this man, this Hoskins, at Lancaster. By his direction I sought him in London, and after some trouble found him. He was busy in his own affairs, and it was difficult to get at him; but by perseverance, and asking him to dine with me at a coffeehouse, I at last succeeded. He is a native of Ravenglass, a miserable town on the sea-shore of Cumberland, with which I am well acquainted, for it is not far from Dromore. He emigrated to America before I was born; and after various speculations, is at last settled at Boston, in some sort of trade, the exigencies of which brought him over here, and he seized the opportunity to visit his family. There they were, still inhabiting the forlorn town of Ravenglass; their cottage still looking out on a dreary extent of sand, mud, and marsh; and the far mountains, which would seem to invite the miserable dwellers of the flats to shelter themselves in their green recesses, but they invite in vain.
“Hoskins found his mother, a woman nearly a hundred years of age, alive; and a widowed sister living with her, surrounded by a dozen children of all ages. He passed two days with them, and naturally recurred to the changes that had taken place in the neighbourhood. He had at one time had dealings with the steward of Dromore, and had seen my father. When he emigrated, Sir Boyvill had just married. Hoskins asked how it went on with him and his bride. It is our glorious fate to be in the mouths of the vulgar, so he heard the story of my mother’s mysterious flight; and in addition to this he was told of my boyish wanderings, my search for my mother, and my declaration that I would give two hundred pounds to any one through whose means I should discover her fate.
“The words fell at first upon a heedless ear, but the next morning it all at once struck him that he might gain the reward, and he wrote to me; and as I was described as a wanderer without a home, he wrote also to my father. When I saw him in town, he seemed ashamed of the trouble I had taken. ‘It is I who am to get the two hundred pounds,’ he said, ‘not you; the chance was worth wasting a little breath; but you may not think the little I have to tell worth your long journey.’
“At length I brought him to the point. At one period, a good many years ago, he was a settler in New York, and by some chance he fell in with a man lately arrived from England, who asked his advice as to obtaining employment: he had some little money — some few hundred pounds, but he did not wish to sink it in trade or the purchase of land, but to get some situation with a tolerable salary, and keep his little capital at command. A strange way of using money and time in America! but such was the fancy of the stranger; he said he should not be easy unless he could draw out his money at any time, and emigrate at an hour’s notice. This man’s name was Osborne; he was shrewd, ready-witted, and good-natured, but idle, and even unprincipled. ‘He did me a good turn once,’ said Hoskins, ‘which makes me unwilling to do him a bad one; but you cannot injure him, I think, in America. He has risen in the world since the time I mention, and has an employment under our minister at Mexico. After all he did not tell me much, and what I learnt came out in long talks by degrees, during a journey or two we took together to the west. He had been a traveller, a soldier in the East Indies, and unlucky every where; and it had gone hard with him at one time in Bengal, but for the kindness of a friend. He was a gentleman far above him in station, who got him out of trouble, and paid his passage to England; and afterwards, when this gentleman returned himself to the island, he found Osborne in trouble again, and again he assisted him. In short, sir, it came out, that if this gentleman (Osborne would never tell his name) stood his friend, it was not for nothing this time. There was a lady to be carried off. Osborne swore he did not know who — he thought it a runaway match; but it turned out something worse, for never did girl take on so for leaving her home with a lover. I tell the story badly, for I never got the rights of it. It ended tragically — the lady died — was drowned, as well as I could make out, in some river. You know how dangerous the streams are on our coast.
“‘It was the naming Cumberland and our estuaries that set me asking questions, which frightened Osborne. When he found that I was a native of that part of the world, he grew as mute as a fish, and never a word more of lady or friend did I get from him; except, as I guessed, he was well rewarded, and sent over the water out of the way; and he swore he believed that the gentleman was dead too. It was no murder — that he averred, but a sad tragic accident that might look like one; and he grew as white as a sheet if ever I tried to bring him to speak of it again. It haunted his thoughts nevertheless: and he would talk in his sleep, and dream of being hanged — and mutter about a grave dug in the sands, and there being no parson; and the dark breakers of the ocean — and horses scampering away, and the lady’s wet hair — nothing regular, but such as often made me waken him; for in wild nights, such mutterings were no lullaby.
“‘Now, sir, whether the lady he spoke of were your lady mother, is more than I can say; but the time and place tally. It is twelve years this summer since he came out; and it had just happened, for his heart and head were full of horrors, and he feared every vessel from Europe brought out a warrant to arrest him, or the like. He was a chicken-hearted fellow; and I have known him hide himself for a week when a packet came from Liverpool. But he got courage as time went on; when I saw him last, he had forgotten all about it; and when I jeered him about his terrors, he laughed, and said all was well, and he should not care going to England; for that the story was blown over, and neither he nor his friend even so much as suspected.
“‘This, sir, is my story; and I don’t think he ever told me any more, or that I can remember any thing else; but such as I tell it, I can swear to it. There was a lady run off with, and she died, by fair means or foul, before she quitted the coast; and was buried, as we might bury in the far west, without bell or prayer-book. And Osborne does not know the name of the lady; but the gentleman he knew, though he has never since heard of him, and believes him to be dead. You best know whether my story is worth the two hundred pounds.’
“Such, Sophia, is the tale I heard. Such is the coarse hand and vulgar tongue that first touches the veil that conceals my mother’s fate.”
“It is a strange story,” said Lady Cecil, shuddering.
“But, on my life, a true one,” cried Neville, “as I will prove. Osborne is now at Mexico. I have inquired at the American consul’s. He is expected back to Washington at the end of this summer. In a few weeks, I shall embark and see this man, who now bears a creditable character, and learn if there is any foundation for Hoskins’s conjectures. If there is, and can I doubt it? if my mother died as he says, I shall learn the manner of her death, and who is the murderer.”
“Murderer!” echoed both his auditors.
“Yes; I cannot retract the word. Murderer in effect, if not in deed. Remember, I witnessed the act of violence which tore my mother from me. He who carried her away is, in all justice, an assassin, even if his hands be not embued with blood. Blood! did I say. Nay, none was shed. I know the spot; I have viewed the very scene. Our waste and desolate coast — the perilous, deceitful rivers, in one of which she perished — the very night, so tempestuous — the wild west-wind bearing the tide with irresistible impetuosity up the estuaries — he seeking the solitary sands — perhaps some smuggling vessel lying in wait — to carry her off unseen, unheard. To me it is as if I knew each act of the tragedy, and heard her last sigh beneath the waves breathed for me. She was dragged out by these men; buried without friend; without decent rites; her tomb the evil report her enemy raised above her; her grave the sands of that dreary shore. Oh, what wild, what miserable thoughts are these! This tale, instead of alleviating my anxious doubts, has taken the sleep out from my eyes. Images of death are for ever passing before me; I think of the murderer with a heart that pants for revenge, and of my beloved mother with such pity, such religious woe, that I would spend my life on that shore seeking her remains, so that at last I might shed my tears above them, and bear them to a more sacred spot. There is an easier way to gain
both ends.”
“It is a sad, but a wild and uncertain story,” remarked Lady Cecil, “and not sufficiently plain, I think, to take you away from us all across the Atlantic.”
“A far slighter clue would take me so far,” replied Gerard, “as you well know. It is not for a traveller to Egypt to measure miles with such timidity. My dear Sophy, you would indeed think me mad if, after devoting my life to one pursuit, I were now to permit a voyage across the Atlantic to stand between me and the slightest chance of having my doubts cleared up. It is a voyage which thousands take every week for their interest or their pleasure. I do much, I think, in postponing my journey till this man returns to Washington. At first I had thought of taking my passage on the instant, and meeting him on his journey homeward from Mexico; but I might miss him. Yet I long to be on the spot, in America; for, if any thing should happen to him; if he should die, and his secret die with him, how for ever after I should be stung by self-reproach!”
“But there seems to me so little foundation—” Lady Cecil began. Neville made an impatient gesture, exclaiming, “Are you not unreasonable, Sophy? my father has made a complete convert of you.”
Elizabeth interposed, and asked, “You saw this man more than once?”
“Who? Hoskins? Yes, three times, and he always told the same story. He persisted in the main points. That the scene of the carrying off of the lady was his native shore, the coast of Cumberland; that the act immediately preceded Osborne’s arrival in America, twelve years ago; and that she died miserably, the victim of her wretched lover. He knew Osborne immediately on his coming to New York, when he was still suffering from the panic of such a tragedy, dreading the arrival of every vessel from England. At that time he concealed carefully from his new friend what he afterwards, in the overflow of his heart, communicated so freely; and, in aftertimes, he reminded him how, when an emissary of the police came from London to seek after some fraudulent defaulter, he, only hearing vaguely that there was search made for a criminal, hid himself for several days. That Osborne was privy to, was participator in, a frightful tragedy, which, to my eyes, bears the aspect of murder, seems certain. I do not, I cannot doubt that my mother died then and there. How? the blood curdles to ask; but I would compass the earth to learn, to vindicate her name, to avenge her death.”
Elizabeth felt Gerard’s hand tremble and grow cold. He rose, and led the way into the drawing-room, while Lady Cecil whispered to her friend, “I am so very, very sorry! To go to America on such a story as this, a story which, if it bear any semblance to the truth, had better be for ever buried in oblivion. Dear Elizabeth, dissuade him, I entreat you.”
“Do you think Mr. Neville so easy of persuasion, or that he ought to be?” replied her companion. “Certainly all that he has heard is vague, coming, as it does, from a third, and an interested person. But his whole life has been devoted to the exculpation of his mother; and, if he believes that this tale affords a clue to lead to discovery, he is a son, and the nature that stirs within him may gift him with a clearer vision and a truer instinct than we can pretend to. Who can say but that a mysterious, yet powerful, hand is at last held out to guide him to the completion of his task? Oh, dear Lady Cecil, there are secrets in the moral, sentient world, of which we know nothing: such as brought Hamlet’s father before his eyes; such as now may be stirring in your brother’s heart, revealing to him the truth, almost without his own knowledge.”
“You are as mad as he,” said Lady Cecil, peevishly. “I thought you a calm and reasonable being, who would co-operate with me in weaning Gerard from his wild fancies, and in reconciling him to the world as it is; but you indulge in metaphysical sallies and sublime flights, which my common-place mind can only regard as a sort of intellectual will-of-the-wisp. You betray, instead of assisting me. Peace be with Mrs. Neville, whether in her grave, or, in some obscure retreat, she grieve over the follies of her youth. She has been mourned for, as never mother was mourned before; but be reasonable, dear Elizabeth, and aid me in putting a stop to Gerard’s insane career. You can, if you will; he reveres you — he would listen to you. Do not talk of mysterious hands, and Hamlet’s ghost, and all that is to carry us away to Fairyland; but of the rational duties of life, and the proper aim of a man, to be useful to the living, and not spend the best years of his life in dreams of the dead.”
“What can I say?” replied Elizabeth: “you will be angry, but I sympathise with Mr. Neville; and I cannot help saying, though you scoff at me, that I think that, in all he is doing, he is obeying the most sacred law of our nature, exculpating the innocent, and rendering duty to her who has a right, living or dead, to demand all his love.”
“Well,” said Lady Cecil, “I have managed very ill; I had meant to make you my ally, and have failed. I do not oppose Gerard in Sir Boyvill’s open angry manner, but it has been my endeavour throughout to mitigate his zeal, and to change him, from a wild sort of visionary, into a man of this world. He has talents, he is the heir to large possessions, his father would gladly assist any rational pursuit; he might make a figure in his country, he might be any thing he pleased; and instead of this, all is wasted on the unhappy dead. You do wrong to encourage him; think of what I say, and use your influence in a more beneficial manner.”
During the following days, this sort of argument was several times renewed. Lady Cecil, who had heretofore opposed Neville covertly, with some show of sympathy, the fallacy of which he easily detected, and who had striven rather to lead him to forget, than to argue against his views, now openly opposed his voyage to America. Gerard heard in silence. He would not reply. Nothing she said carried the slightest weight with him, and he had long been accustomed to opposition, and to take his own way in spite of it. He was satisfied to do so now, without making an effort to convince her. Yet he was hurt, and turned gladly to Elizabeth for consolation. Her avowed and warm approval, her anxious sympathy, the certainty she expressed that in the end he would succeed, and that his enthusiasm and zeal were implanted in his heart for the express purpose of his mother’s vindication, and that he would fail in every higher duty if he now held back; all this echoed so faithfully his own thoughts, that she already appeared a portion of his existence that he could never part from, the dear and promised reward of all his exertions.
In the ardour of her sympathy, Elizabeth wrote to Falkner. She had before written to tell him that she had seen again her friend of Marseilles; she wrote trembling, fearful of being recalled home; for she remembered the mysterious shrinking of her father from the name of Neville. His replies, however, only spoke of a short journey he was making, and a delay in his own joining her. Now again she wrote to speak of Neville’s filial piety, his mother’s death, her alleged dishonour, his sufferings and heroism; she dilated on this subject with fond approval, and expressed her wishes for his success in warm and eager terms; for many days she had no reply; a letter came at last — it was short. It besought her instantly to return. “This is the last act of duty, of affection, I shall ever ask,” Falkner wrote: “comply without demurring, come at once; come, and hear the fatal secret that will divide us for ever. Come! I ask but for a day; the eternal future you may, you will, pass with your new friends.”
Had the writing not been firm and clear, such words had seemed to portend her benefactor’s death; wondering, struck by fear, inexpressibly anxious to comply with his wishes, pale and trembling, she besought Lady Cecil to arrange for her instant return. Gerard heard with sorrow, but without surprise; he knew, if her father demanded her presence, her first act would be obedience. But he grieved to see her suffer, and he began also to wonder by what strange coincidence they should both be doomed to sorrow, through the disasters of their parents.
CHAPTER VI.
Falkner had parted with his dear adopted child, under a strong excitement of fear concerning her health. The change of air and scene restored her so speedily, that his anxieties were of short duration. He was, however, in no hurry to rejoin her, as he was taught to consider a temp
orary separation from him as important to her convalescence.
For the first time, after many years, Falkner was alone. True, he was so in Greece; but there, he had an object. In Greece also, it is true that he had dwelt on the past, writing even a narrative of his actions, and that remorse sat heavy at his heart, while he pursued this task. Yet he went to Greece to assist in a glorious cause, and to redeem his name from the obloquy his confession would throw on it, by his gallantry and death. There was something animating in these reflections. Then also disease had not attacked him, nor pain made him its prey — his sensations were healthful — and if his reflections were melancholy and self-condemning, yet they were attended by grandeur, and even by sublimity, the result of the danger that surrounded him, and the courage with which he met it.
Now he was left alone — broken in health — dashed in spirit; consenting to live — wishing to live for Elizabeth’s sake — yet haunted still by one pale ghost, and the knowledge that his bosom contained a secret which, if divulged, would acquire for him universal detestation. He did not fear discovery; but little do they know the human heart, who are not aware of the throes of shame and anguish that attend the knowledge that we are in reality a cheat, that we disguise our own real selves, and that truth is our worst enemy. Left to himself, Falkner thought of these things with bitterness, he loathed the burthen that sat upon his soul, he longed to cast it off; yet, when he thought of Elizabeth, her devoted affection, and earnest entreaties, he was again a coward; how could he consent to give her up, and plant a dagger in her heart!
There was but one cure to the irritation that his spirit endured, which was — to take refuge in her society; and he was about to join her, when a letter came, speaking of Gerard Neville — the same wild boy they had seen at Baden — the kind friend of Marseilles, still melancholy, still stricken by adversity; but endowed with a thousand qualities to attract love and admiration; full of sentiment, and poetry — kind and tender as woman — resolute and independent as a man. — Elizabeth said little, remembering Falkner’s previous restriction upon his name — but she considered it her duty to mention him to her benefactor; and that being her duty to him, it became another to her new friend, to assert his excellence, lest by some chance Falkner had mistaken, and attributed qualities that did not belong to him.
