Paris was the next, but transient, resting-place of the travellers. Here
Falkner made such arrangements with regard to remittances as he believed
would best ensure his scheme of concealment. He laid the map of Europe
before him, and traced a course with his pencil somewhat erratic, yet
not without a plan. Paris, Hamburgh, Stockholm, St. Petersburgh, Moscow,
Odessa, Constantinople, through Hungary to Vienna. How many thousand
miles! miles which, while he traversed, he could possess his soul in
freedom--fear no scrutiny--be asked no insidious questions. He could
look each man in the face, and none trace his crime in his own.
It was a wild scheme to make so young a child as Elizabeth the companion
of these devious and long wanderings, yet it was her idea that shed
golden rays on the boundless prospect he contemplated. He could not have
undertaken this long journey alone--memory and remorse his only
companions. He was not one of those, unfortunately, whom a bright eye
and kindly smile can light at once into a flame--soon burnt out, it is
true, but warming and cheering, and yet harmless, while it lasted. He
could not, among strangers, at once discern the points to admire, and
make, himself the companion of the intelligent and good, through a sort
of freemasonry some spirits possess. This was a great defect of
character. He was proud and reserved. His esteem must be won--long
habits of intimacy formed--his fastidious taste never wounded--his
imagination never balked; without this he was silent and wrapped in
himself. All his life he had cherished a secret and ardent passion,
beyond whose bounds everything was steril--this had changed from the
hopes of love to the gnawing pangs of remorse--but still his heart fed
on itself--and unless that was interested, and by the force of affection
he were called out of himself, he must be miserable. To arrive
unwelcomed at an inn--to wander through unknown streets and cities
without any stimulus of interest or curiosity--to traverse vast tracts
of country, useless to others, a burden to himself, alone--this would
have been intolerable. But Elizabeth was the cure; she was the animating
soul of his project; her smiles--her caresses--the knowledge that he
benefited her, was the life-blood of his design. He indulged, with a
sort of rapture, in the feeling that he loved, and was beloved by an
angel of innocence, who grew each day into a creature endowed with
intelligence, sympathies, hopes, fears, and affections--all individually
her own, and yet all modelled by him--centred in him--to whom he was
necessary--who would be his; not, like the vain love of his youth, only
in imagination, but in every thought and sensation, to the end of time.
Nor did he intend to pursue his journey in such a way as to overtask her
strength or injure her health. He cared not how much time elapsed before
its completion. It would certainly employ years; it mattered not how
many. When winter rendered travelling painful, he could take up his
abode in a metropolis abounding in luxuries. During the summer heats he
might fix himself in some villa, where the season would be mitigated to
pleasantness. If impelled by a capricious predilection, he could stay
for months in any chance-selected spot; but his home was, with Elizabeth
beside him, in his travelling carriage. Perpetual change would baffle
pursuit if any were set on foot; while the restlessness of his life, the
petty annoyances and fleeting pleasures of a traveller's existence,
would serve to occupy his mind, and prevent its being mastered by those
passions to which one victim had been immolated, and which rendered the
remnant of his days loathsome to himself. "I have determined to live,"
he thought, "and I must therefore ensure the means of life. I must adopt
a method by which I can secure for each day that stock of patience which
is necessary to lead me to the end of it. In the plan I have laid down,
every day will have a task to be fulfilled, and while I employ myself in
executing it, I need look neither before nor behind; and each day added
thus, one by one, to one another, will form months and years, and I
shall grow old travelling post over Europe."
His resolution made, he was eager to enter on his travels, which,
singular to say, he performed even in the very manner he had determined;
for the slight changes in the exact route, introduced afterward from
motives of convenience or pleasure, might be deemed rather as in
accordance with, than deviating from, his original project.
Falkner was not a man ordinarily met with. He possessed wild and fierce
passions, joined to extreme sensibility, beneficence, and generosity.
His boyhood had been rendered miserable by the violence of a temper
roused to anger even from trifles. Collision with his fellow-creatures,
a sense of dignity with his equals, and of justice towards his
inferiors, had subdued this; still his blood was apt to boil when roused
by any impediment to his designs, or the sight of injury towards others,
and it was with great difficulty that he kept down the outward marks of
indignation or contempt. To tame the vehemence of his disposition, he
had endeavoured to shackle his imagination, and to cultivate his
reason--and perhaps he fancied that he succeeded best when, in fact, he
entirely failed. As now, when he took the little orphan with him away
from all the ties of blood--the manners and customs of her country--from
the discipline of regular education, and the society of others of her
sex--had not Elizabeth been the creature she was, with a character not
to be disharmonized by any circumstances, this had been a fearful
experiment.
Yet he fondly hoped to derive happiness from it. Traversing long tracts
of country with vast speed, cut off from intercourse with every one but
her, and she endearing herself more, daily, by extreme sweetness of
disposition, he began almost to forget the worm gnawing at his bosom;
and, feeling himself free, to fancy himself happy. Unfortunately, it was
not so: he had passed the fatal Rubicon, placed by conscience between
innocence and crime; and however much he might for a time deaden the
stings of feeling or baffle the inevitable punishment hereafter to arise
from the consequences of his guilt, still there was a burden on his soul
that took all real zest from life, and made his attempts at enjoyment
more like the experiments of a physician to dissipate sickness, than the
buoyant sensations of one in health.
But then he thought not of himself--he did not live in himself, but in
the joyous being at his side. Her happiness was exuberant. She might be
compared to an exotic, lately pinched, and drooping from the effects of
the wintry air, transported back, in the first opening of a balmy
southern spring, to its native clime. The young and tender green leaves
unfolded themselves in the pleasant air; blossoms appeared among the
foliage, and sweet fruit might be anticipated. Nor was it only the
kindness of her protector that endeared him to her: much of the warm
sentiment of affection arose from their singular modes of life. Had they
continued at a fixed residence, in town or country, in a civilized land,
Elizabeth had seen her guardian at stated periods; have now and then
taken a walk with him, or gambolled in the garden at his side; while,
for the chief part, their occupation and pursuits being different, they
had been little together. As it was, they were never apart: side by side
in a travelling carriage--now arriving, now departing; now visiting the
objects worthy of observation in various cities. They shared in all the
pleasures and pains of travel, and each incident called forth her sense
of dependance, and his desire to protect; or, changing places, even at
that early age, she soothed his impatience, while he was beguiled of his
irritability by her cheerful voice and smiling face. In all this,
Elizabeth felt most strongly the tie that bound them. Sometimes
benighted; sometimes delayed by swollen rivers; reduced to bear together
the miseries of a bad inn, or, at times, of no inn at all; sometimes in
danger--often worn by fatigue--Elizabeth found in her adopted parent a
shelter, a support, and a preserver. Creeping close to him, her little
hand clasped in his, or carried in his arms, she feared nothing, because
he was there. During storms at sea, he had placed his own person between
her and the bitter violence of the wind, and had often exposed himself
to the inclemency of the weather to cover her, and save her from wet and
cold. At all times he was on the alert to assist, and his assistance was
like the coming of a superior being, sufficient to save her from harm,
and inspire her with courage. Such circumstances had, perhaps, made a
slight impression on many children; but Elizabeth had senses and
sensibilities so delicately strung, as to be true to the slightest touch
of harmony.
She had not forgotten the time when, neglected, and almost in rags, she
only heard the voice of complaint or chiding; when she crept alone over
the sands to her mother's grave, and, did a tempest overtake her, there
was none to shield or be of comfort; she remembered little accidents
that had at times befallen her, which, to her infantine feelings, seemed
mighty dangers. But there had been none, as now, to pluck her from peril
and ensure her safety. She recollected when, on one occasion, a
thunder-storm had overtaken her in the churchyard; when, hurrying home,
her foot slipped, as she attempted to descend the wet path of the cliff;
frightened, she clambered up again, and, returning home by the upper
road, had lost her way, and found night darkening round her--wet, tired,
and shivering with fear and cold; and then, on her return, her welcome
had been a scolding--well meant, perhaps, but vulgar, loud, and painful:
and now the contrast! Her wishes guessed--her thoughts divined--ready
succour and perpetual vigilance were for ever close at hand; and all
this accompanied by a gentleness, kindness, and even by a respect, which
the ardent yet refined feelings of her protector readily bestowed. Thus
a physical gratitude--so to speak--sprung up in her child's heart, a
precursor to the sense of moral obligation to be developed in after
years. Every hour added strength to her affection, and habit generated
fidelity, and an attachment not to be shaken by any circumstances.
Nor was kindness from him the only tie between them. Elizabeth discerned
his sadness, and tried to cheer his gloom. Now and then the fierceness
of his temper broke forth towards others; but she was never terrified,
and grieved for the object of his indignation; or if she felt it to be
unjust, she pleaded the cause of the injured, and, by her caresses,
brought him back to himself. She early learned the power she had over
him, and loved him the more fondly on that account. Thus there existed
a perpetual interchange of benefit--of watchful care--of mutual
forbearance--of tender pity and thankfulness. If all this seems beyond
the orphan's years, it must be remembered that peculiar circumstances
develop peculiar faculties; and that, besides, what is latent does not
the less exist on that account. Elizabeth could not have expressed, and
was, indeed, unconscious of the train of feeling here narrated. It was
the microcosm of a plant folded up in its germe. Sometimes looking at a
green, unformed bud, we wonder why a particular texture of leaves must
inevitably spring from it, and why another sort of plant should not
shoot out from the dark stem: but, as the tiny leaflet uncloses, it is
there in all its peculiarity, and endowed with all the especial
qualities of its kind. Thus with Elizabeth, however, in the
thoughtlessness and inexperience of childhood, small outward show was
made of the inner sense; yet in her heart, tenderness, fidelity, and
unshaken truth were folded up, to be developed as her mind gained ideas,
and sensation gradually verged into sentiment.
The course of years, also, is included in this sketch. She was six years
old when she left Paris--she was nearly ten when, after many wanderings,
and a vast tract of country overpassed, they arrived at Odessa. There
had always been a singular mixture of childishness and reflection in
her, and this continued even now. As far as her own pleasures were
concerned, she might be thought behind her age: to chase a butterfly--to
hunt for a flower--to play with a favourite animal--to listen with
eagerness to the wildest fairy tales--such were her pleasures; but there
was something more as she watched the turns of countenance in him she
named her father--adapted herself to his gloomy or communicative
mood--pressed near him when she thought he was annoyed--and restrained
every appearance of discomfort when he was distressed by her being
exposed to fatigue or the inclement sky.
When at St. Petersburgh he fell ill, she never left his bedside; and,
remembering the death of her parents, she wasted away with terror and
grief. At another time, in a wild district of Russia, she sickened of
the measles. They were obliged to take refuge in a miserable hovel; and,
despite all his care, the want of medical assistance endangered her
life, while her convalescence was rendered tedious and painful by the
absence of every comfort. Her sweet eyes grew dim; her little head
drooped. No mother could have attended on her more assiduously than
Falkner; and she long after remembered his sitting by her in the night
to give her drink--her pillow smoothed by him--and, when she grew a
little better, his carrying her in his arms under a shady grove, so to
give her the benefit of the air, in a manner that would least incommode
her. These incidents were never forgotten. They were as the colour and
fragrance to the rose--the very beauty and delight of both their lives.
Falkner felt a half remorse at the too great pleasure he derived from
her society; while hers was a sort of rapturous, thrilling adoration,
that dreamed not of the necessity of a check, and luxuriated in its
boundless excess.