"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 coffee-house,
I at last succeeded. He is a native of Ravenglass, a miserable town on
the seashore 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 exigences 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 learned 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
everywhere; 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
afterward, 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 anything 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 imbrued 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 wo, 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 clew 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 anything 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 afterward, in the overflow of his heart, communicated
so freely; and, in after times, 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 clew 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 commonplace mind can only regard as a sort of
intellectual will-o'-the-wisp. You betray, instead of assisting me.
Peace be with Mrs. Neville, whether in her grave, or, in some obscure
retreat, she grieves 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
sympathize 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 anything 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.