"It was not until a year after their return from abroad that the events
happened which terminated so disastrously Mrs. Neville's career in her
own family. I am perplexed how to begin the narration, the story is so
confused and obscure; the mystery that envelops the catastrophe so
impenetrable; the circumstances that we really know so few, and these
gleaned, as it were, ear by ear, as dropped in the passage of the event;
so making, if you will excuse my rustic metaphor, a meager, ill-assorted
sheaf. Mrs. Neville had been a wife nearly ten years; never had she done
one act that could be disapproved by the most circumspect; never had she
swerved from that veracity and open line of conduct which was a
safeguard against the mingled ardour and timidity of her disposition. It
required extraordinary circumstances to taint her reputation, as, to say
the least, it is tainted; and we are still in the dark as to the main
instrument by which these circumstances were brought about. Their result
is too obvious. At one moment Mrs. Neville was an honoured and beloved
wife; a mother, whose heart's pulsations depended on the well-being of
her children; and whose fond affection was to them as the sun's warmth
to the opening flower. At the next, where is she? Silence and mystery
wrap her from us; and surmise is busy in tracing shapes of infamy from
the fragments of truth that we can gather.
"On the return of the family from abroad, they again repaired to their
seat of Dromore; and, at the time to which I allude, Mr. Neville had
left them there, to go to London on business. He went for a week; but
his stay was prolonged to nearly two months. He heard regularly from his
wife. Her letters were more full of her children and household than
herself; but they were kind; and her maternal heart warmed, as she
wrote, into anticipations of future happiness in her children, greater
even than she now enjoyed. Every line breathed of home and peace; every
word seemed to emanate from a mind in which lurked no concealed feeling,
no one thought unconfessed or unapproved. To such a home, cheered by so
much beauty and excellence, Sir Boyvill returned, as he declares, with
eager and grateful affection. The time came when he was expected at
home; and true, both to the day and to the hour, he arrived. It was at
eleven at night. His carriage drove through the grounds; the doors of
the house were thrown open; several eager faces were thrust forward with
more of curiosity and anxiety than is at all usual in an English
household; and as he alighted, the servants looked aghast, and exchanged
glances of terror. The truth was soon divulged. At about six in the
evening, Mrs. Neville, who dined early in the absence of her husband,
had gone to walk in the park with Gerard; since then, neither had
returned.
"When the darkness, which closed in with a furious wind and
thunder-storm, rendered her prolonged absence a matter of solicitude,
the servants had gone to seek her in the grounds. They found their
mistress's key in the lock of a small masked gate that opened on a green
lane. They went one way up the lane to meet her; but found no trace.
They followed the other, with like ill success. Again they searched the
park with more care; and again resorted to the lanes and fields; but in
vain. The obvious idea was, that she had taken shelter from the storm;
and a horrible fear presented itself, that she might have found no
better retreat than a tree or hay-rick, and that she had been struck by
the lightning. A slight hope remained, that she had gone along the
high-road to meet her husband, and would return with him. His arrival
alone took from them this last hope.
"The country was now raised. Servants and tenants were sent divers ways;
some on horseback, some on foot. Though summer-time, the night was
inclement and tempestuous; a furious west wind swept the earth; high
trees were bowed to the ground; and the blast howled and roared, at once
baffling and braving every attempt to hear cries or distinguish sounds.
"Dromore is situated in a beautiful, but wild and thinly--inhabited part
of Cumberland, on the verge of the plain that forms the coast where it
first breaks into uplands, dingles, and ravines; there is no high-road
towards the sea--but as they took the one that led to Lancaster, they
approached the ocean, and the distant roar of its breakers filled up the
pauses of the gale. It was on this road, at the distance of some five
miles from the house, that Gerard was found. He was lying on the road in
a sort of stupor--which could be hardly called sleep--his clothes were
drenched by the storm, and his limbs stiff from cold. When first found,
and disturbed, he looked wildly around; and his cry was for his
mother--terror was painted in his face--and his intellects seemed
deranged by a sudden and terrific shock. He was taken home. His father
hurried to him, questioning him eagerly--but the child only raved that
his mother was being carried from him; and his pathetic cry of 'Come
back, mamma--stop--stop for me!' filled every one with terror and
amazement. As speedily as possible, medical assistance was sent for; the
physician found the boy in a high fever, the result of fright, exposure
to the storm, and subsequent sleep in his wet clothes in the open air.
It was many days before his life could be answered for--or the delirium
left him--and still he raved that his mother was being carried off, and
would not stop for him, and often he tried to rise from his bed under
the notion of pursuing her.
"At length consciousness returned--consciousness of the actual objects
around him, mingled with an indistinct recollection of the events that
immediately preceded his illness. His pulse was calm; his reason
restored; and he lay quietly with open eyes fixed on the door of his
chamber. At last he showed symptoms of uneasiness, and asked for his
mother. Mr. Neville was called, as he had desired he might be the moment
his son showed signs of being rational. Gerard looked up in his father's
face with an expression of disappointment, and again murmured, 'Send
mamma to me.'
"Fearful of renewing his fever by awakening his disquietude, his father
told him that mamma was tired and asleep, and could not be disturbed.
"'Then she has come back?' he cried; 'that man did not take her quite
away? The carriage drove here at last.'
"Such words renewed all their consternation. Afraid of questioning the
child himself, lest he should terrify him, Mr. Neville sent the nurse
who had been with him from infancy, to extract information. His story
was wild and strange; and here I must remark, that the account drawn
from him by the woman's questions differs somewhat from that to which he
afterward adhered; though not so much in actual circumstances as in the
colouring given. This his father attributes to his subsequent endeavours
to clear his mother from blame; while he asserts, and I believe with
truth, that time and knowledge, by giving him an insight into motives,
threw a new light on the words and actions which he remembered; and that
circumstances which bore one aspect to his ignorance, became clearly
visible in another, when he was able to understand the real meaning of
several fragments of conversation which had at first been devoid of
sense.
"All that he could tell during this first stage of inquiry was, that his
mother had taken him to walk with her in the grounds, that she had
unlocked the gate that opened out on the lane with her own key, and that
a gentleman was without waiting.
"Had he ever seen the gentleman before?
"Never; he did not know him, and the stranger took no notice of him; he
heard his mamma call him Rupert.
"His mother took the stranger's arm, and walked on through the lane,
while he sometimes ran on before, and sometimes remained at her side.
They conversed earnestly, and his mother at one time cried; he, Gerard,
felt very angry with the gentleman for making her cry, and took her
hand, and begged her to leave him and come away; but she kissed the boy,
told him to run on, and they would return very soon.
"Yet they did not return, but walked on to where the lane was
intersected by the high-road. Here they stopped, and continued to
converse; but it seemed as if she were saying good-by to the stranger,
when a carriage, driven at full speed, was seen approaching; it stopped
close to them; it was an open carriage, a sort of calèche, with the
head pulled forward low down; as it stopped his mother went up to it,
when the stranger, pulling the child's hand from hers, hurried her into
the carriage, and sprang in after, crying out to him, 'Jump in, my boy!'
but, before he could do so, the postillion whipped the horses, who
started forward almost with a bound, and were in a gallop on the
instant; he heard his mother scream; the words 'My child! my son!'
reached his ears, shrieked in agony. He ran wildly after the carriage;
it disappeared, but still he ran on. It must stop somewhere, and he
would reach it--his mother had called for him; and thus, crying,
breathless, panting, he ran along the high-road; the carriage had long
been out of sight, the sun had set; the wind, rising in gusts, brought
on the thunder-storm; yet still he pursued, till nature and his boyish
strength gave way, and he threw himself on the ground to gain breath. At
every sound which he fancied might be that of carriage-wheels, he
started up; but it was only the howling of the blast in the trees, and
the hoarse muttering of the now distant thunder; twice and thrice he
rose from the earth and ran forward; till, wet through and utterly
exhausted, he lay on the ground, weeping bitterly, and expecting to die.
"This was all his story. It produced a strict inquiry among the
servants, and then circumstances scarcely adverted to were remembered,
and some sort of information gained. About a week or ten days before, a
gentleman on horseback, unattended by any servant, had called. He asked
for Mrs. Neville; the servant requested his name, but he muttered that
it was no matter. He was ushered into the room where their mistress was
sitting; he stayed at least two hours; and, when he was gone, they
remarked that her eyes were red, as if she had been weeping. The
stranger called again, and Mrs. Neville was denied to him.
"Inquiries were now instituted in the neighbourhood. One or two persons
remembered something of a stranger gentleman who had been seen riding
about the country, mounted on a fine bay horse. One evening he was seen
coming from the masked gate in the park, which caused it to be believed
that he was on a visit at Dromore. Nothing more was known of him.
"The servants tasked themselves to remember more particularly the
actions of their lady, and it was remembered that one evening she went
to walk alone in the grounds, some accident having prevented Gerard from
accompanying her. She returned very late, at ten o'clock; and there was,
her maid declared, a good deal of confusion in her manner. She threw
herself on a sofa, ordered the lights to be taken away, and remained
alone for two hours past her usual time for retiring for the night,
till, at last, her maid ventured in to ask her if she needed anything.
She was awake, and, when lights were brought, had evidently been
weeping. After this she only went out in the carriage with the children,
until the fatal night of her disappearance. It was remembered, also,
that she received several letters, brought by a strange man, who left
them without waiting for any answer. She received one the very morning
of the day when she left her home, and this last note was found; it
threw some light on the fatal mystery. It was only dated with the day of
the week, and began abruptly:--
"'On one condition I will obey you; I will never see you more--I will
leave the country--I will forget my threats against the most hated life
in the world; he is safe on one condition. You must meet me this
evening; I desire to see you for the last time. Come to the gate of your
park that opens on the lane, which you opened for me a few nights ago;
you will find me waiting outside. I will not detain you long. A farewell
to you and to my just revenge shall be breathed at once. If you do not
come I will wait till night, till I am past hope, and then enter your
grounds, wait till he returns, and--oh, do not force me to say what you
will call wicked and worse than unkind, but come, come, and prevent all
ill. I charge you come, and hereafter you shall, if you please, be for
ever delivered from your
"'RUPERT.
"On this letter she went; yet in innocence, for she took her child with
her. Could any one doubt that she was betrayed, carried off, the victim
of the foulest treachery? No one did doubt it. Police were sent from
London, the country searched, the most minute inquiries set on foot.
Sometimes it was supposed that a clew was found, but in the end all
failed. Month after month passed; hope became despair; pity merged into
surmise; and condemnation quickly followed. If she had been carried
forcibly from her home, still she could not forever be imprisoned and
debarred from all possibility at least of writing. She might have sent
tidings from the ends of the earth, nay, it was madness to think that
she could be carried far against her own will. In any town, in any
village, she might appeal to the justice and humanity of her
fellow-creatures, and be set free. She would not have remained with the
man of violence who had torn her away, unless she had at last become a
party in his act, and lost all right to return to her husband's roof.
"Such suspicions began to creep about--rather felt in men's minds than
inferred in their speech--till her husband first, uttered the fatal
word; and then, as if set free from a spell, each one was full of
indignation at her dereliction and his injuries. Sir Boyvill was beyond
all men vain--vanity rendered him liable to jealousy--and, when jealous,
full of sore and angry feelings. His selfishness and unforgiving nature,
which had been neutralized by his wife's virtues, now, quickened by the
idea of her guilt, burst forth and engrossed every other emotion. He was
injured there where the pride of man is most accessible--branded by
pity--the tale of the world. He had feared such a catastrophe during the
first years of his wedded life, being conscious of the difference which
age and nature had placed between him and his wife. In the recesses of
his heart he had felt deeply grateful to her for having dissipated these
fears. From the moment that her prudent conduct had made him secure, he
had become another man--as far as his defective nature and narrow mind
permitted--he had grown virtuous and disinterested; but this fabric of
good qualities was the result of her influence; and it was swept away
and utterly erased from the moment she left him, and that love and
esteem were exchanged for contempt and hatred.
"Soon, very soon, had doubts of his wife's allegiance and a suspicion of
her connivance insinuated themselves. Like all evilly-inclined persons,
he jumped at once into a belief of the worst; her taking her son with
her was a mere contrivance, or worse, since her design had probably been
to carry him with her--a design frustrated by accident, and the
lukewarmness of her lover on that point; the letter left behind he
looked on as a fabrication, left there to gloss over her conduct. He
forgot her patient goodness--her purity of soul--her devoted attachment
to her children--her truth; and attributed at once the basest
artifice--the grossest want of feeling. Want of feeling in her! She
whose pulses quickened and whose blushes were called up at a word; she
who idolized her child even to a fault, and whose tender sympathy was
alive to every call; but these demonstrations of sensibility grew into
accusations. Her very goodness and guarded propriety were against her.
Why appear so perfect, except to blind? Why seclude herself, except from
fears which real virtue need never entertain? Why foster the morbid
sensibility of her child, except from a craving for that excitement
which is a token of depravity? In this bad world we are apt to consider
every deviation from stony apathy as tending at last to the indulgence
of passions against which society has declared a ban; and thus with poor
Alithea, all could see, it was said, that a nature so sensitive must end
in ill at last; and that, if tempted, she must yield to an influence
which few, even of the coldest natures, can resist.
"While Sir Boyvill revolved these thoughts, he grew gloomy and sullen.
At first his increased unhappiness was attributed to sorrow; but a
little word betrayed the real source--a little word that named his wife
with scorn. That word turned the tide of public feeling; and she, who
had been pitied and wept as dead, was now regarded as a voluntary
deserter from her home. Her virtues were remembered against her; and
surmises, which before would have been reprobated almost as blasphemy,
became current--as undoubted truths.
"It was long before Gerard became aware of this altered feeling. The
minds of children are such a mystery to us! They are so blank, yet so
susceptible of impression, that the point where ignorance ends and
knowledge is perfected is an enigma often impossible to solve. From the
time that he rose from his sick-bed, the boy was perpetually on the
watch for intelligence--eagerly inquiring what discoveries were
made--what means were used for, what hopes entertained of, his mother's
rescue. He had asked his father whether he should not be justified in
shooting the villain who had stolen her if ever he met him. He had shed
tears of sorrow and pity until indignation swallowed up each softer
feeling, and a desire to succour and to avenge became paramount. His
dear, dear mother! that she should be away--kept from him by force--that
he could not find--not get at her, were ideas to incense his young heart
to its very height of impatience and rage. Every one seemed too
tame--too devoid of expedients and energy. It appeared an easy thing to
measure the whole earth, step by step, and inch by inch, leaving no
portion uninspected till she was found and liberated. He longed to set
off on such an expedition; it was his dream by night and day; and he
communicated these bursting feelings to every one, with an overflowing
eloquence, inexpressibly touching from its truth and earnestness.
"Suddenly he felt the change. Perhaps some officious domestic suggested
the idea. He says himself, it came on him as infection may be caught by
one who enters an hospital. He saw it in the eyes--he felt it in the air
and manner of all: his mother was believed to be a voluntary fugitive;
of her own accord she went, and never would return. At the thought his
heart grew sick within him:--
"'To see his nobleness!
Conceiving the dishonour of his mother,
He straight declined upon't, drooped, took it deeply;
Fastened and fixed the shame on't in himself;
Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep,
And downright languished.'
"He refused food, and turned in disgust from every former pursuit.
Hitherto he had ardently longed for the return of his mother; and it
seemed to him that, give his limbs but a manlier growth, let a few years
go over, and he should find and bring her back in triumph. But that
contumely and disgrace should fall on that dear mother's head--how could
he avert that? The evil was remediless, and death was slight in
comparison. One day he walked up to his father, and fixing his clear
young eyes upon him, said, 'I know what you think, but it is not true.
Mamma would come back if she could. When I am a man I will find and
bring her back, and you will be sorry then!'
"What more he would have said was lost in sobs. His heart had beat
impetuously as he had worked on himself to address his father, and
assert his mother's truth; but the consciousness that she was indeed
gone, and that for years there was no hope of seeing her, broke in--his
throat swelled, he felt suffocated, and fell down in a fit."