by Mary Shelley
“She continued however in a state of torpor. There were two rooms in the hut. I prepared a sort of couch for her in the inner one. I placed her on it; I covered her with her cloak. By degrees the sort of insensibility in which she sunk changed to sleep. We left her then, and sat watching in the outer room. I kept my eyes fixed on her, and saw that each hour added to the tranquillity of her repose; I could not hear her breathe; for though the thunder and rain had ceased, the wind howled and the near ocean roared; its billows, driven by the western gale, encroached upon the sands almost to the threshold of the hut.
“A revulsion had taken place within me; I felt that there was something dearer to me than the fulfilment of my schemes, which was her life. She appeared almost miraculously restored, and my softened heart thanked God and blessed her. I believed I could be happy even in eternal absence, now that the guilt of her death was taken from my soul. Well do I remember the kind of rapture that flowed in upon my heart, as at dawn of day I crept noiselessly to her side, and marked the regular heaving of her bosom; and saw her eye-lids, heavy and dark with suffering, it is true, yet gently closed over the dear orbs which again and for many a long year would enjoy the light of day. I felt a new man, I felt happy. In a few short hours I should receive her pardon — convey her home — declare my own guilt; and while absolving her, offer myself as the mark of whatever vengeance her husband might choose to take. Me! — Oh, what was I? I had no being; it was dissolved into a mere yearning for her life — her contentment. I was about to render myself up as a criminal to a man whose most generous act would be to meet me in the field; but that was nothing: I thought not of it, either with gladness or regret. She lives — she shall be restored to all she loves — she once again will be at peace.
“These were my dreams as I hung over her, and gradually the break of day became more decided; by the increasing light I could perceive that I had not deceived myself, she slept a healthy, profound, healing sleep: I returned to the outer room; Osborne had wrapt himself in his great coat, and lay stretched on the floor. I roused him, and told him to go for the horses and carriage immediately, so that the first thing that might welcome Alithea’s awakening should be the offer of an immediate return home. He gladly obeyed, and left the hut; but scarcely was he gone than a sort of consciousness came over me, that I would not remain with her alone; so I followed him at some little distance towards the shed where the carriage and horses were.
“The wind had scattered every cloud, and still howled through the clear gray morning sky, the sea was in violent commotion, and huge surges broke heavily and rapidly on the beach. The tide was flowing fast, and the bed of the river, we had crossed so safely the night before, was covered by the waves; in a little time the ford would be impassable, and this was another reason to hasten the arrival of the horses. To the east each crag and precipice, each vast mountain top, showed in dark relief against the golden eastern sky; seaward the horizon was misty from the gale, and the ocean stretched out illimitably; curlews and gulls screamed as they skimmed the crested waves, and breaker after breaker dashed furiously at my feet. It was a desolate, but a magnificent spectacle, and my throbbing heart was in unison with its vast grandeurs. I blessed sea and wind, and heaven, and the dawn; the guilt of my soul had passed from me, and without the grievous penalty I had dreaded; all again was well. I walked swiftly on, I reached the shed. Osborne was busy with the horses; he had done what he could for them the night before, and they seemed tolerably fresh. I spoke cheerfully to the man, as I helped to harness them. Osborne was still pale with fright, but when I told him that I was going to carry the lady back to her friends, and that there was nothing to fear, he took heart; I bade him come slowly along, that the noise of the wheels might not waken her, if she still slept, and I walked beside, my hand on the neck of one horse while he bestrode the other, and we gazed around and pointed to each other signs of the recent tempest, which had been so much more violent than I in my pre-occupation had known; and then as the idea of the ford being rendered impassable crossed me again, I bid him get on at a quicker rate, there was no fear of disturbing the sleeping lady, for the wheels were noiseless on the heavy sands.
“I have mentioned that huge sand hills were thrown up here and there on the beach; two of the highest of these shut out all view of the hut, and even of the river, till we were close upon them. As we passed these mounds, my first glance was to see the state of the tide. The bed of the river was entirely filled with dashing crested waves, which poured in from the sea with inconceivable rapidity, and obliterated every trace of the ford. I looked anxiously round, but it was plain we must wait for the ebbing tide, or make a long detour to seek the upper part of the stream. As I gazed, something caught my eyes as peculiar. The foam of the breaking waves was white, and this object also was white; yet was it real, or but the mockery of a human form? For a moment my heart ceased to beat, and then with wings to my feet I ran to the hut: I rushed into the inner room — the couch was deserted, the whole dwelling empty! I hurried back to the river’s brink and strained my eyeballs to catch a sight of the same fearful object; it was there! I could not mistake, a wave lifted up and then again overwhelmed and swallowed in its abyss, the form, no longer living, the dead body of Alithea. I threw myself into the water, I battled with the waves, the tide bore me on. Again and again I was blinded and overwhelmed by the surges, but still I held on, and made my way into the middle of the roaring flood. As I rose gasping from one large billow, that had, for more than a minute, ingulfed me in its strangling depths, I felt a substance strike against me; instinctively I clutched at it, and grasping her long, streaming hair, now with renewed strength and frantic energy I made for shore. I was as a plaything to the foaming billows, but by yielding to them, by suffering myself to be carried up the tide, to where the river grew shallower and the waves less powerful, I was miserable enough at last to escape. Fool! did I not know that she was dead! — why did I not, clasping her in my arms, resign my life to the waters? No! she had returned to me from the gates of death the night before, and I madly deemed the miracle would be twice performed.
“I reached the bank. Osborne, trembling and ghastly, helped me to lift her on shore; we endeavoured by various means to recall the spark of life: it was too late. She had been long in the water, and was quite dead!
“How can I write these words, how linger on these hideous details? Alas! they are for ever before me; no day, no hour passes but the whole scene is acted over again with startling vividness — and my soul shrinks and shudders from the present image of death. Even now that the dawn of Greece is breaking among the hills; that the balmy summer air fans my cheek, that the distant mountain tops are gilded by the morning beams — and the rich tranquil beauty of a southern clime is around; yet even now the roar of that distant ocean is in my ear, the desolate coast stretches out far away, and Alithea lies pale, drenched and lifeless, at my feet.
“I saw it all; and how often, and for ever, do I go over in my thoughts what had passed during the interval of my absence! She had awoke refreshed, she collected her scattered senses, she remembered the hideous vision of her carrying off. She knew not of my relenting, she feared my violence, she resolved to escape; she was familiar with that shore; its rivers and the laws which governed their tides, were known to her. She believed that she could pass the water in safety, for often when the bed of the estuary was apparently full, she knew that she had forded the stream on horseback, and the waters scarce covered the animal’s fetlock. Intent on escaping the man of violence, of reaching her beloved home, she had entered the stream without calculating the difference of a calm neap tide, and the mass of irresistible waves borne up by the strong western wind; they perhaps seemed less terrible than I; to fly from me, she encountered, delivered herself up to them! and there she lay destroyed, dead, lost for ever!
“No more of this! What then I did, may, I now conceive, appear more shocking to my countrymen, than all that went before. But I knew little of English customs. I had gone
out an inexperienced stripling to India, and my modes of action were formed there. I now know that when one dies in England, they keep the lifeless corpse, weeping and watching beside it for many days, and then with lingering ceremonies, and the attendance of relations and friends, lay it solemnly in the dismal tomb. But I had seen whole armies mown down by the sword and disease; I was accustomed to the soldier’s hastily dug grave, in a climate where corruption follows fast upon death. To hide the dead with speed from every eye, was the Indian custom.
“And then, should I take the corpse of Alithea, wet with the ocean tide, ghastly from the throes of recent death, and bear her to her home, and say, here she is — she enjoyed life and happiness yester-evening; I bore her away, behold my work! Should I present myself to her husband, answer his questions, detail the various stages of my crime, and tamely await his vengeance, or his pardon? never!
“Or should I destroy myself at her side, and leave our bodies to tell a frightful tale of mystery and horror? The miserable terrors of my associate would of itself have prevented this catastrophe. I had to reassure and protect him.
“My resolution was quickly made not to outlive my victim, and making atonement by my death, what other penalty could I be called upon to pay? But my death should not be a tale to appal or amuse the vulgar, or to swell with triumph the heart of Alithea’s tyrant husband. Secrecy and oblivion should cover all. My plan was laid, and I acted accordingly.
“Osborne entered into the design with alacrity. He was moved by other feelings, he was possessed by an agony of fear; he did not doubt but that we should be accused of murdering the hapless lady, and the image of the gallows flitted before his eyes.
“Understanding each other without many words, Osborne said that in the shed where we had placed the horses, he had remarked a spade; it was so early, that no one was about to observe him, and he went to fetch it. He returned in about half an hour; I sat keeping watch the while, by the dead, and feasted my eyes with the sight of my pale victim, as she lay at my feet. Of what tough materials is man formed, that my heart-strings did not break, and that I outlived that hour!
“Osborne returned, and we went to work. Some ten yards above high water mark, there was a single, leafless, moss-grown, skeleton tree, with something like soil about its roots, and sheltered from the spray and breeze by the vicinity of a sand-hill: close to it we dug a deep grave. I placed the cushions in it, on which her fair form, all warm, and soft, had reposed during the preceding night. Then I composed her stark limbs, banding the long wet tresses of her abundant hair across her eyes, for ever closed, crossing her hands upon her pure, death-cold bosom; I touched her reverently, I did not even profane her hand by a kiss; I wrapped her in her cloak, and laid her in the open grave. I tore down some of the decaying boughs of the withered tree, and arching them above her body, threw my own cloak above, so with vain care to protect her lifeless form from immediate contact with the soil. Then we filled up the grave, and scattering dry sand above, removed every sign of recent opening. This was performed in silence, or with whispered words — the roaring waves were her knell, the rising sun her funeral torch; I was satisfied with the solemnity of the scene around; and I was composed, for I was resolved on death. Osborne trembled in every limb, and his face rivalled in hue her wan, bloodless countenance.
“We carefully removed every article from the hut, and put all in the same state as when we found it. I did not, indeed, fear discovery; who would imagine that my course would be to the desolate sea beach? and if they did, and found all, I should be far, I should be dead. But Osborne was eager to obliterate every mark of the hut having been visited. When he was satisfied that he had accomplished this, without looking behind, I got into the carriage, we drove with what speed we could to Lancaster, and thence to Liverpool. Osborne was in a transport of fear till he got on board an American vessel: fortunately, the wind having veered towards the north, there was one about to weigh anchor. I placed a considerable sum of money in my accomplice’s hands, and recommended discretion. He would have questioned me as to my own designs, but he respected my stern silence, and we parted never to meet again. A small coasting vessel, bound for Plymouth, was at that moment making her way out of harbour; I hailed a man on board, and threw myself on to the deck.
“Elizabeth can tell the rest. She knows how I landed in a secluded village of Cornwall, with the intent there to make due sacrifice to the outraged manes of Alithea. Still I grieve for the unaccomplished purpose; still I repine that I did not there die. She stopped my hand. An angel, in likeness of a human child, arrested my arm; and winning my wonder by her extraordinary loveliness, and my interest by her orphan and desolate position, I seemed called upon to live for her sake. The struggle was violent, for I longed to make atonement by my death; and I longed to forget my crimes, and their consequences, in the oblivious grave. At first I thought that the respite I granted myself would be short, but it lasted for year; and I dragged out a living death, having survived love and hope: remorse my follower; ghastly images of crime and death my comrades. I travelled from place to place, pursued by Alithea’s upbraiding ghost, and my own torturing thoughts. By frequent change of place, I sought to assuage my pangs; I believe that I increased them. They might, perhaps, have been mitigated by the monotony of a stationary life. But a traveller’s existence is all sensation, and every emotion is rendered active and penetrating by the perpetual variation of the appearances of natural objects. Thought and feeling awaken with the sun, and dewy eve and the radiant stars cause the eyes to turn towards the backward path; while darkness, felt palpably, as one proceeds onward in an unknown land, awakens the snakes of conscience. The storm and expected wreck are images of retribution; while yet the destruction I pined for, receded from before my thirsting lips.
“Yet still I dragged on life, most unworthily and unworthy, till on a day I saw the son of my victim at Baden. I witnessed misery, widely spread, through my means; and felt that her disembodied spirit must curse me for the evil I had brought on her beloved child. I remembered all she had fondly said of him: and the cloudless beauty of his face, his joyous laugh, and free step when last I saw him at her side. He was blighted and destroyed by me; gloomy, savage and wild, eternal sorrow was written on his brow, fear and hatred gleamed in his eyes. Such by my means had the son of Alithea become; such had his base-minded father rendered him; but mine the guilt — mine be the punishment! What a wretch was I, to live in peace and security, ministered to by an angel — while this dearest part of herself was doomed to anguish, and to the unmitigated influence of the demon for ever at his side, through my accursed means.
“From that hour I became thrice hateful to myself; I had tried to live for my Elizabeth; but that idea passed away with every other solace, in which hitherto I had iniquitously indulged. I resolved to die; but as a taint has been cast by the most villanous heart in the world upon her hallowed name, my first task was to redeem that out of her unworthy husband’s hands; and yet I could not, I would not, while living, disclose the truth and give a triumph to my enemy. But soon, oh very soon, will the soil of Greece drink up my life-blood! and while this writing proclaims her innocence, I shall be sheltered by the grave from the taunts and revilings of men.
“And you, dear child of my affection, who have been to me as a blessing immediate from heaven, who have warmed my heart with your love and smoothed the fierceness of my temper by your unalterable sweetness; who having blessed me with your virtues, clinging to the ruin with a fidelity I believed impossible, how shall I say farewell to you? Forgive your friend that he deserts you; long ago he deserted himself and the better part of life; it is but the shell of him that remains; and that corroded by remorse, and the desire to die. You deserve better than to have your young days clouded by the shadow of my crime thrown over them. Forget me, and be happy; you must be so, while I! — The sun is up; the martial trumpet sounds. It is a joy to think that I shall have a soldier’s grave.”
CHAPTER XIV.
Such wa
s the tale presented to the young, enthusiastic, innocent Elizabeth, unveiling the secret of the life of him whom she revered above all the world. Her soul was in her eyes as she read, or rather devoured, page after page, till she arrived at the catastrophe; when a burst of passionate tears relieved her swelling bosom, and carried away upon their stream a thousand, trembling, unspeakable fears that had gathered in wild multitude around her heart. “He is innocent! He, my benefactor, my father, when he accused himself of murder, spoke, as I thought, of a consequence, not an act; and if the chief principle of religion be true, that repentance washes away sin, he is pardoned, and the crime forgotten. Noble, generous heart! What drops of anguish have you not shed in atonement! What glorious obsequies you pay your victim! For she also is acquitted. Gerard’s mother is more than innocent. She was true to him, and to the purest sentiments of nature, to the end; nay more, her life was sacrificed to them.” And Elizabeth went over in her mind, as Falkner had often done, the emotions that actuated her to attempt the dangerous passage across the ford. She fancied her awakening on the fatal morning, her wild look around. No familiar object met her view — nor did any friendly voice re-assure her; the strange scene and solitary hut were testimonies that she did not dream, and that she had really been torn from home and all she loved by a violence she could not resist. At first she must have listened tremblingly, and fancied her lover-enemy at hand. But all is still. She rises; she ventures to examine the strange dwelling to which she has been carried — no human being presents himself. She quits the threshold of the hut — a familiar scene is before her eyes, the ocean, and the dreary, but well known shore — the river which she has so often crossed — and among the foldings of the not distant hills, embosomed in trees, she sees Dromore, her tranquil home. She knows that it is but a few miles distant; and while she fancies her enemy near at hand, yet the hope animates her that she may cross the stream unseen, and escape. Elizabeth imaged all her hopes and fears; she seemed to see the hapless lady place her uncertain feet, her purpose being staunch and unfaltering, within the shallow wave, which she believed she could traverse in safety; the roar of the advancing tide was in her ears, the spray dashed round her, and her footing grew uncertain, as she sought to find her way across the rugged bed of the river. But she thought only of her child, from whom she had been torn, and her fears of being, through the deed of violence which had carried her off, excluded from her home for ever. To arrive at that home was all her desire. As she advanced she still fixed her eyes on the clustering woods of Dromore, sleeping stilly in the grey, quiet dawn: and she risked her life unhesitatingly to gain the sacred shelter. All depended on her reaching it, quickly and alone; and she was doomed never to see it more. She advances resolutely, but cautiously. The waves rise higher — she is in the midst of the stream — her footing becomes more unsteady — does she look back? — there is no return — her heart proudly repels the very thought of desiring it. She gathers her garments about her — she looks right onward — she steps more carefully — the surges buffet her — they rise higher and higher — the spray is dashed over her head, and blinds her sight — a false step — she falls — the waters open to engulf her — she is borne away. One thought of her Gerard — one prayer to Heaven, and the human eye can pursue the parting soul no further. She is lost to earth — none upon it can any longer claim a portion in her.
