"I do not know why I have dwelt on these circumstances so long. Let me
hasten to finish. For two months Gerard wandered in the neighbourhood of
Dromore. If he saw a lone cottage, imbowered in trees, hidden in some
green recess of the hills, sequestered and peaceful, he thought, Perhaps
my mother is there! and he clambered towards it, finding it at last,
probably, a mere shepherd's hut, poverty-stricken, and tenanted by a
noisy family. His money was exhausted--he made a journey to Lancaster to
sell his watch, and then returned to Cumberland--his clothes, his shoes
were worn out--often he slept in the open air--ewes' milk cheese and
black bread were his fare--his hope was to find his mother--his fear to
fall again into his father's hands. But as the first sentiment failed,
his friendless condition grew more sad; he began to feel that he was
indeed a feeble, helpless boy--abandoned by all--he thought nothing was
left for him but to lie down and die.
"Meanwhile he was noticed, and at last recognised, by some of the
tenants; and information reached his father of where he was.
Unfortunately, the circumstance of his disappearance became public. It
was put into the newspapers as a mysterious occurrence; and the proud
Sir Boyvill found himself not only pitied on account of his wife's
conduct, but suspected of cruelty towards his only child. At first he
was himself frightened and miserable; but when he heard where Gerard
was, and that he could be recovered at any time, these softer feelings
were replaced by fury. He sent the tutor to possess himself of his son's
person. He was seized with the help of a constable; treated more like a
criminal than an unfortunate, erring child; carried back to
Buckinghamshire; shut up in a barricadoed room; debarred from air and
exercise; lectured; menaced; treated with indignity. The boy, hitherto
accustomed to more than usual indulgence and freedom, was at first
astonished, and then wildly indignant at the treatment he suffered. He
was told that he should not be set free till he submitted. He believed
that to mean, until he could give testimony against his mother. He
resolved rather to die. Several times he endeavoured to escape, and was
brought back and treated with fresh barbarity--his hands bound, and
stripes inflicted by menials; till, driven to despair, he at one time
determined to starve himself, and at another tried to bribe a servant to
bring him poison. The trusting piety inculcated by his gentle mother was
destroyed by the ill-judged cruelty of his father and his doltish
substitute. It is painful to dwell on such circumstances; to think of a
sensitive, helpless child treated with the brutality exercised towards a
galley-slave. Under this restraint, Gerard grew such as you saw him at
Baden--sullen, ferocious, plunged in melancholy, delivered up to
despair.
"It was some time before he discovered that the submission demanded of
him was not to run away again. On learning this, he wrote to his father.
He spoke with horror of the personal indignities he had endured; of his
imprisonment; of the conduct of Mr. Carter. He did not mean it as such,
but his letter grew into an affecting, irresistible appeal that even
moved Sir Boyvill. His stupid pride prevented him from showing the
regret he felt. He still used the language of reproof and conditional
pardon; but the tutor was dismissed, and Gerard restored to liberty. Had
his father been generous or just enough to show his regret, he might
probably have obliterated the effects of his harshness; as it was,
Gerard gave no thanks for a boon which saved his life, but restored him
to none of its social blessings. He was still friendless--still orphaned
in his affections--still the memory of intolerable tyranny, the
recurrence of which was threatened if he made an ill use of the freedom
accorded him, clung like the shirt of Nessus--and his noble, ardent
nature was lacerated by the intolerable recollection of slavish terrors.
"You saw him at Baden, and it was at Baden that I also first knew him.
You had left the baths when my mother and I arrived. We became
acquainted with Sir Boyvill. He was still handsome--he was rich--and
those qualities of mind which ill agreed with Alithea's finer nature did
not displease a fashionable woman of the world. Such was my mother.
Something that was called an attachment sprang up, and they married. She
preferred the situation of wife to that of widow; and he, having been
accustomed to the social comforts of a domestic circle, despite his
disasters, disliked his bachelor state. They married; and I, just then
eighteen--just out, as it is called--became the sister of my beloved
Gerard.
"I feel pride when I think of the services that I have rendered him. He
had another fall from his horse not long after, or rather, again urging
the animal down a precipice, it fell. He was underneath, and his leg was
broken. During the long confinement that ensued, I was his faithful
nurse and companion. Naturally lively, yet I could sympathize in his
sorrows. By degrees I won his confidence. He told me all his story--all
his feelings. He grew mild and soft under my influence. He grew to
regret that he had been vanquished by adversity so as to become almost
what he was accused of being, a frantic idiot. As he talked of his
mother, and the care she bestowed on his early years, he wept to think
how unlike he was to the creature she had wished him to become. A desire
to reform, to repair past faults, to school himself, grew out of such
talk. He threw off his sullenness and gloom. He became studious at the
same time that he grew gentle. His education, which had proceeded but
badly while he refused to lend his mind to improvement, was now the
object of his own thoughts and exertions. Instead of careering wildly
over the hills, or being thrown under some tree delivered up to
miserable revery, he asked for masters, and was continually seen with a
book in his hands.
"The passion of his soul still subsisted, modulated by his new feelings.
He continued to believe in the innocence of his mother, though he often
doubted her existence. He longed inexpressibly to unveil the mystery
that shrouded her fate. He devoted himself in his heart to discovering
the truth. He resolved to occupy his whole life in the dear task of
reinstating her in that cloudless purity of reputation which he
intimately felt she had never deserved to forfeit. He considered the
promise exacted from him by his father as preventing him from following
up his design, and as binding him till he was twenty-one. Till then he
deferred his endeavours. No young spendthrift ever aspired for the
attainment of the age of freedom and the possession of an estate as
vehemently as did Gerard for the hour which was to permit him to deliver
himself wholly up to this task.
"Before that time arrived I married. I wished to take him abroad with
us; but the unfounded (as I believe) notion that the secret of his
mother's fate is linked to the English shores made him dislike to leave
his native country. It was only on our return that he consented to come
as far as Marseilles to meet us.
"When he had reached the age of twenty-one he announced to his father
his resolve to discover his mother's fate. Sir Boyvill was highly
indignant. The only circumstance that at all mitigated the disgrace of
his wife's flight was the oblivion into which she and all concerning her
had sunk. To have new inquiries set on foot, and the forgotten shame
recalled to the memories of men, appeared not less wicked than insane.
He remonstrated, he grew angry, he stormed, he forbade; but Gerard
considered that time had set a limit to his authority, and only withdrew
in silence, not the less determined to pursue his own course.
"I need not say that he met with no success; a mystery so impenetrable
at first, does not acquire clearness after time has obscured the little
ever known. Whatever were the real circumstances and feelings that
occasioned her flight, however innocent she might then be, time has
cemented his mother's union with another, and made her forget those she
left behind. Or may I not say, what I am inclined to believe, that
though the violence of another was the cause at last of guilt in her,
yet she pined for those she deserted--that her heart was soon
broken--that the sod has long since covered her form--while the
miserable man who caused all this evil is but too eager to observe a
silence which prevents his name from being loaded with the execrations
he deserves? I cannot help, therefore, regretting that Gerard insists
upon discovering the obscure grave of his miserable mother--while he,
who, whether living or dead, believes her to have been always innocent,
is to be dissuaded by no arguments, still less by the angry
denunciations of Sir Boyvill, whose conduct throughout he looks on as
being the primal cause of his mother's misfortunes.
"I have told you the tale, as nearly as I can, in the spirit in which
Gerard himself would have communicated it--such was my tacit pledge to
him; nor do I wish, by my suspicions or conjectures, to deprive him of
your sympathy, and the belief he wishes you to entertain of his mother's
innocence; but truth will force its way, and who can think her wholly
guiltless? Would to God! oh, how often and how fervently have I prayed
that Gerard were cured of the madness which renders his life a wild,
unprofitable dream; and, looking soberly on the past, consent to bury in
oblivion misfortunes and errors which are beyond all cure, and which it
is worse than vain to remember."