"After a little explanation, I discovered who my new friends were. The
lady and my mother were remotely related; but they had been educated
together, and separated only when they married. My mother's death had
prevented my knowing that such a relation existed; far less that she
took the warmest interest in the son of her earliest friend. Mrs. Rivers
had been the poorer of the two, and for a long time considered that her
childhood's companion was moving in an elevated sphere of life, while
she had married a lieutenant in the navy; and while he was away,
attending the duties of his profession, she lived in retirement and
economy, in the rustic, low-roofed, yet picturesque and secluded
cottage, whose leaf-shrouded casements and flowery lawn even now are
before me, and speak of peace. I never call to mind that abode of
tranquillity without associating it with the poet's wish:--
'Mine be a cot beside the hill--
A beehive's hum shall sooth my ear;
A willowy brook, that turns a mill,
With many a fall shall linger near.'
To any one who fully understands and appreciates the peculiar beauties
of England--who knows how much elegance, content, and knowledge can be
sheltered under such a roof, these lines must ever, I think, as to me,
have a music of their own, and, unpretending as they are, breathe the
very soul of happiness. In this imbowered cot, near which a clear stream
murmured--which was clustered over by a thousand odoriferous
parasites--which stood in the seclusion of a beech wood--there dwelt
something more endearing even than all this--and one glance at the only
daughter of Mrs. Rivers served to disclose that an angel dwelt in the
paradise.
"Alithea Rivers--there is music, and smiles, and tears--a whole life of
happiness--and moments of intensest transport in the sound. Her beauty
was radiant; her dark eastern eye, shaded by the veined and
darkly-fringed lid, beamed with a soft but penetrating fire; her face of
a perfect oval, and lips which were wreathed into a thousand smiles, or
softly and silently parted, seemed the home of every tender and poetic
expression which one longed to hear them breathe forth; her brow clear
as day; her swan throat and symmetrical and fairy-like form disclosed a
perfection of loveliness, that the youngest and least susceptible must
have felt, even if they did not acknowledge.
"She had two qualities which I have never seen equalled separately, but
which, united in her, formed a spell no one could resist--the most acute
sensitiveness to joy or grief in her own person, and the most lively
sympathy with these feelings in others. I have seen her so enter heart
and soul into the sentiments of one in whom she was interested, that her
whole being took the colour of their mood; and her very features and
complexion appeared to alter in unison with theirs. Her temper was never
ruffled; she could not be angry; she grieved too deeply for those who
did wrong; but she could be glad; and never have I seen joy, the very
sunshine of the soul, so cloudlessly expressed as in her countenance.
She could subdue the stoutest heart by a look--a word; and were she ever
wrong herself, a sincere acknowledgment, an ingenuous shame--grief to
have offended, and eagerness to make reparation, turned her very error
into a virtue. Her spirits were high, even to wildness; but, at their
height, tempered by such thought for others, such inbred feminine
softness, that her most exuberant gayety resembled heart-cheering music,
and made each bosom respond. All, everything loved her; her mother
idolized her; each bird of the grove knew her; and I felt sure that the
very flowers she tended were conscious of, and rejoiced in, her
presence.
"Since my birth--or at least since I had lost my mother in early
infancy, my path had been cast upon thorns and brambles--blows and
stripes, cold neglect, reprehension, and debasing slavery; to such was I
doomed. I had longed for something to love--and in the desire to possess
something whose affections were my own, I had secreted at school a
little nest of field mice on which I tended; but human being there was
none who marked me, except to revile, and my proud heart rose in
indignation against them. Mrs. Rivers had heard a sad story of my
obduracy, my indolence, my violence; she had expected to see a savage,
but my likeness to my mother won her heart at once, and the affection I
met transformed me at once into something worthy of her. I had been told
I was a reprobate till I half believed. I felt that there was war
between me and my tyrants, and I was desirous to make them suffer even
as they made me. I read in books of the charities of life--and the very
words seemed only a portion of that vast system of imposture with which
the strong oppressed the weak. I did not believe in love or beauty; or
if ever my heart opened to it, it was to view it in external nature, and
to wonder how all of perceptive and sentient in this wondrous fabric of
the universe was instinct with injury and wrong.
"Mrs. Rivers was a woman of feeling and sense. She drew me out--she
dived into the secrets of my heart; for my mother's sake she loved me,
and she saw that to implant sentiments of affection was to redeem a
character not ungenerous, and far, far from cold--whose evil passions
had been fostered as in a hotbed, and whose better propensities were
nipped in the bud. She strove to awaken my susceptibility to kindness,
by lavishing a thousand marks of favour. She called me her son--her
friend; she taught me to look upon her regard as a possession of which
nothing could deprive me, and to consider herself and her daughter as
near and dear ties that could not be rent away. She imparted happiness,
she awoke gratitude, and made me in my innermost heart swear to deserve
her favour.
"I now entered on a new state of being, and one of which I had formed no
previous idea. I believed that the wish to please one who was dear to me
would render every task easy; that I did wrong merely from caprice and
revenge, and that if I chose, I could with my finger stem and direct the
tide of my passions. I was astonished to find that I could not even bend
my mind to attention--and I was angry with myself, when I felt my breast
boiling with tumultuous rage, when I promised myself to be meek,
enduring, and gentle. My endeavours to conquer these evil habits were
indeed arduous. I forced myself by fits and starts to study
sedulously--I yielded obedience to our school laws; I taxed myself to
bear with patience the injustice and impertinence of the ushers, and the
undisguised tyranny of the master. But I could not for ever string
myself to this pitch. Meanness, and falsehood, and injustice again and
again awoke the tiger in me. I am not going to narrate my boyhood's
wrongs; I was doomed. Sent to school with a bad character, which at
first I had taken pains to deserve, and afterward doing right in my own
way, and still holding myself aloof from all, scorning their praise, and
untouched by their censure, I gained no approbation, and was deemed a
dangerous savage, whose nails must be kept close pared, and whose limbs
were still to be fettered, lest he should rend his keepers.
"From such a scene I turned, each Sunday morning, my willing steps to
the cottage of Mrs. Rivers. There was something fascinating to me in the
very peculiarities of her appearance. Ill health had brought premature
age upon her person--but her mind was as active and young--her feelings
as warm as ever. She could only stand for a few minutes, and could not
unassisted walk across the room--she took hardly any nourishment, and
looked, as I have said, more like a spirit than a woman. Thus deprived
of every outward resource, her mind acquired, from habits of reflection
and resignation, aided by judicious reading, a penetration and delicacy
quite unequalled. There was a philosophical truth in all her remarks,
adorned by a feminine tact and extreme warmth of heart, that rendered
her as admirable as she was endearing. Sometimes she suffered great
pain, but, for the most part, her malady, which was connected with the
spine, had only the effect of extreme weakness, and at the same time of
rendering her sensations acute and delicate. The odour of flowers, the
balmy air of morning, the evening breeze almost intoxicated her with
delight; any dissonant sound appeared to shatter her--peace was within,
and she coveted peace around; and it was her dearest pleasure when we--I
and her lovely daughter--were at her feet, she playing with the sunny
ringlets of Alithea's hair, and I listening, with a thirst for
knowledge--and ardour to be taught; while she with eloquence mild and
cheering, full of love and wisdom, charmed our attentive ears, and
caused us to hang on all she said as on the oracles of a divinity.
"At times we left her, and Alithea and I wandered through the woods and
over the hills; our talk was inexhaustible, now canvassing some
observation of her mother, now pouring out our own youthful bright
ideas, and enjoying the breezes and the waterfalls, and every sight of
nature, with a rapture unspeakable. When we came to rugged uplands, or
some swollen brook, I carried my young companion over in my arms; I
sheltered her with my body from the storms that, sometimes overtook us.
I was her protector and her stay; and the very office filled me with
pride and joy. When fatigued by our rambles, we returned home, bringing
garlands of wild flowers for the invalid, whose wisdom we revered, whose
maternal tenderness was our joy; and yet, whose weakness made her, in
some degree, dependant on us, and gave the form of a voluntary tribute
to the attentions we delighted to pay her.
"Oh, had I never returned to school, this life had been a foretaste of
heaven! but there I returned, and there again I found rebuke, injustice,
my evil passions, and the fiends who tormented me. How my heart revolted
from the contrast! with what inconceivable struggles I tried to subdue
my hatred, to be as charitable and forgiving as Mrs. Rivers implored me
to be; but my tormentors had the art of rousing the savage again, and,
despite good resolves, despite my very pride, which urged me merely to
despise, I was again violent and rebellious; again punished, again
vowing revenge, and longing to obtain it. I cannot imagine--even the
wild passions of my after life do not disclose--more violent struggles
than those I went through. I returned from my friends, my heart stored
with affectionate sentiments and good intentions; my brow was smooth, my
mind unruffled; my whole soul set upon at once commanding myself, and
proving to my tyrants that they could not disturb the sort of heavenly
calm with which I was penetrated.
"On such a day, and feeling thus, I came back one evening from the
cottage. I was met by one of the ushers, who, in a furious voice,
demanded the key of my room, threatening me with punishment if I ever
dared lock it again. This was a sore point; my little family of mice had
their warm nest in my room, and I knew that they would be torn from me
if the animal before me penetrated into my sanctuary before I could get
in to hide them; but the fellow had learned from the maids that I had
some pets, and was resolute to discover them. I cannot dwell on the
puerile yet hideous minutiæ of such a scene; the loud voice, the blow,
the key torn from me, the roar of malice with which my pets were hailed,
the call for the cat. My blood ran cold; some slave--among boys even
there are slaves--threw into the room the tiger animal; the usher showed
her prey; but before she could spring I caught her up, and whirled her
out of the window The usher gave me a blow with a stick; I was a
well-grown boy, and a match for him unarmed; he struck me on the head,
and then drew out a knife, that he might himself commence the butcher's
work on my favourites: stunned by the blow, but casting aside all the
cherished calm I had hitherto maintained, my blood boiling, my whole
frame convulsed with passion, I sprung on him. We both fell on the
ground, his knife was in hand, open; in our struggle I seized the
weapon, and the fellow got cut in the head--of course I inflicted the
wound; but had, neither before nor at that time, the intention; our
struggle was furious; we were both in a state of phrensy, and an open
knife at such a moment can hardly fail to do injury; I saw the blood
pouring from his temple, and his efforts slacken. I jumped up, called
furiously for help, and when the servants and boys rushed into the room,
I made my escape. I leaped from the window, high as it was, and
alighted, almost by a miracle, unhurt on the turf below; I made my way
with all speed across the fields. Methought the guilt of murder was on
my soul, and yet I felt exultation that at last I, a boy, had brought
upon the head of my foe some of the tortures he had so often inflicted
upon me. By this desperate act I believed that I had severed the cords
that bound me to the vilest servitude. I knew not but that houseless
want would be my reward, but I felt light as air and free as a bird.
"Instinctively my steps took the direction of my beloved cottage; yet I
dared not enter it. A few hours ago I had left it in a pure and generous
frame of mind. I called to mind the conversation of the evening before,
the gentle eloquence of Mrs. Rivers, inculcating those lessons of mild
forbearance and lofty self-command which had filled me with generous
resolve; and how was I to return?--my hands died in blood.
"I hid myself in the thicket near her house, sometimes I stole near it;
then, as I heard voices, I retreated farther into the wild part of the
wood. Night came on at last, and that night I slept under a tree, but at
a short distance from the cottage.
"The cool morning air woke me; and I began seriously to consider my
situation; destitute of friends and money, whither should I direct my
steps? I was resolved never to return to my school. I was nearly
sixteen; I was tall and athletic in my frame, though still a mere boy in
my thoughts and pursuits; still, I told myself that, such as I, many a
stripling was cast upon the world, and that I ought to summon courage,
and to show my tyrants that I could exist independent of them. My
determination was to enlist as a soldier; I believed that I should so
distinguish myself by my valour as speedily to become a great man. I saw
myself singled out by the generals, applauded, honoured, and rewarded.
I fancied my return, and how proudly I should present myself before
Alithea, having carved out my own fortune, and become all that her sweet
mother entreated me to be--brave, generous, and true. But could I put my
scheme in execution without seeing my young companion again? Oh, no! my
heart, my whole soul led me to her side, to demand her sympathy, to ask
her prayers, to bid her never forget me; at the same time that I dreaded
seeing her mother, for I feared her lessons of wisdom. I felt sure, I
knew not why, that she would wholly disapprove of my design.
"I tore a leaf from my pocketbook, and, with the pencil, implored
Alithea to meet me in the wood, whence I resolved not to stir till I
should see her. But how was I to convey my paper without the knowledge
of her mother? or being seen by the servants? I hovered about all day;
it was not till nightfall that I ventured near, and, knowing well the
casement of her room, I wrapped my letter round a stone, and threw it
in. Then I retreated speedily.
"It was night again; I had not eaten for twenty-four hours; I knew not
when Alithea could come to me, but I resolved not to move from the spot
I had designated till she came. I hunted for a few berries, and a turnip
that had fallen from a cart was as the manna of the desert. For a short
half hour it stilled the gnawings of my appetite, and then I lay down
unable to sleep. Eying the stars through the leafy boughs above,
thinking alternately of a prisoner deserted by his jailer, and starved
to death, while at each moment he fancied the far step approaching, and
the key turning in the lock; and then, again, of feasts, of a paradise
of fruits, of the simple, cheerful repasts at the cottage, which, for
many a long year, I was destined never again to partake of.
"It was midnight; the air was still, not a leaf moved; sometimes I
believed I dosed; but I had a sense of being awake always present to my
mind; the hours seemed changed to eternity. I began suddenly to think I
was dying; I thought I never should see the morrow's sun. Alithea would
come, but her friend would not answer to her call; he would never speak
to her more. At this moment I heard a rustling; was there some animal
about? it drew near, it was steps; a white figure appeared between the
trunks of the trees; again I thought it was a dream, till the dearest of
all voices spoke my name, the loveliest and kindest face in the world
bent over me; my cold, clammy hand was taken in hers, so soft and warm.
I started up, I threw my arms around her, I pressed her to my bosom. She
had found my note on retiring for the night; fearful of disobeying my
injunctions of secrecy, she had waited till all was at rest before she
stole out to me; and now, with all the thoughtfulness that characterized
her, when another's wants and sufferings were in question, she brought
food with her, and a large cloak to wrap my shivering limbs. She sat
beside me as I ate, smiling through her tears; no reproach fell from her
lips, it was only joy to see me, and expressions of kind encouragement.
"I dwell too much on these days; my tale grows long, and I must abridge
the dear recollections of those moments of innocence and happiness.
Alithea easily persuaded me to see her mother, and Mrs. Rivers received
me as a mother would a son who has been in danger of death, and is
recovering. I saw only smiles, I heard only congratulations. I wondered
where the misery and despair which gathered so thickly around me had
flown--no vestige remained; the sun shone unclouded on my soul.
"I asked no questions, I remained passive; I felt that something was
being done for me, but I did not inquire what. Each day I spent several
hours in study, so to reward the kindness of my indulgent friend. Each
day I listened to her gentle converse, and wandered with Alithea over
hill and dale, and poured into her ear my resolutions to become great
and good. Surely in this world there are no aspirations so noble, pure,
and godlike as those breathed by an enthusiastic boy, who dreams of love
and virtue, and who is still guarded by childlike innocence.
"Mrs. Rivers, meanwhile, was in correspondence with my uncle, and, by a
fortunate coincidence, a cadetship long sought by him was presented at
this moment, and I was removed to the East Indian military college.
Before I went, my maternal friend spoke with all the fervour of
affection of my errors, my duties, the expectation she had that I should
show myself worthy of the hopes she entertained of me. I promised to her
and to Alithea--I vowed to become all they wished; my bosom swelled with
generous ambition and ardent gratitude; the drama of life, methought,
was unrolling before me--the scene on which I was to act appeared
resplendent in fairy and gorgeous colours; neither vanity nor pride
swelled me up; but a desire to prove myself worthy of those adored
beings who were all the world to me, who had saved me from myself, to
restore me to the pure and happy shelter of their hearts. Can it be
wondered that, from that day to the present hour, they have seemed to me
portions of heaven incarnate upon earth?--that I have prized the thought
of them as a rich inheritance? And how did I repay? Cold, wan figure of
the dead! reproach me not thus with your closed eyes, and the dank
strings of your wet clinging hair. Give me space to breathe, that I may
record your vindication and my crime.
"I was placed at the military college. Had I gone there at once, it had
been well; but first I spent a month at my uncle's, where I was treated
like a reprobate and a criminal. I tried to consider this but as a trial
of my promises and good resolution to be gentle--to turn one cheek when
the other was smitten. It is not for me to accuse others or defend
myself; but yet I think that I had imbibed so much of the celestial
virtues of my instructress, that, had I been treated with any kindness,
my heart must have warmed towards my relatives; as it was, I left my
uncle's, having made a vow never to sleep beneath his roof again.
"I reached the military college, and here I might fairly begin a new
career. I exerted myself to study--to obey--to conciliate. The applause
that followed my endeavours gave me a little pleasure; but when I wrote
to Alithea and her mother, and felt no weight on my conscience, no
drawback to my hope, that I was rendering myself worthy of them, then
indeed my felicity was without alloy; and when my fiery temper kindled,
when injustice and meanness caused my blood to boil, I thought of the
mild, appealing look of Mrs. Rivers, and the dearer smiles of her
daughter, and I suppressed every outward sign of anger and scorn.
"For two whole years I did not see these dear, dear friends, while I
lived upon the thought of them--alas! when have I ceased to do that?--I
wrote constantly and received letters. Those dictated by Mrs. Rivers,
traced by her sweet daughter's hand, were full of all that generous
benevolence, and enlightened sensibility which rendered her the very
being to instruct and rule me; while the playful phrases of Alithea--her
mention of the spots we had visited together, and history of all the
slight events of her innocent life, breathed so truly of the abode of
peace from which they emanated, that they carried the charm of a soft
repose even to my restless spirit. A year passed, and then tidings of
misery came. Mrs. Rivers was dying. Alithea wrote in despair--she was
alone--her father distant. She implored my assistance--my presence. I
did not hesitate. Her appeal came during the period that preceded an
examination; I believed that it would be useless to ask leave to absent
myself, and I resolved at once to go without permission. I wrote a
letter to the master, mentioning that the sickness of a friend forced me
to this step; and then, almost moneyless and on foot, I set out to cross
the country. I do not record trivialties--I will not mention the
physical sufferings of that journey, they were so much less than the
agony of suspense I suffered, the fear that I should not find my
maternal friend alive. Life burnt low indeed--when I, at last, stepped
within the threshold of her sick chamber; yet she smiled when she saw
me, and tried to hold out her hand--one already clasped that of Alithea.
For hours we thus watched her, exchanging looks, not speech. Alithea,
naturally impetuous, and even vehement, now controlled all sign of
grief, except the expression of wo, that took all colour from her face,
and clouded her brow with anguish. She knelt beside her mother--her lips
glued to her hand, as if to the last to feel her pulse of life, and
assure herself that she still existed. The room was darkened; a broken
ray tinged the head of the mourner, while her mother lay in shadow--a
shadow that seemed to deepen as the hue of death crept over her face;
now and then she opened her eyes--now and then murmured inarticulately,
and then she seemed to sleep. We neither moved--sometimes Alithea raised
her head and looked on her mother's countenance, and then, seeing the
change already operated, it drooped over the wan hand she held. Suddenly
there was a slight sound--a slight convulsion in the fingers. I saw a
shade darken over the face--something seemed to pass over, and then
away--and all was marble still--and the lips, wreathed into a smile,
became fixed and breathless. Alithea started up, uttered a shriek, and
threw herself on her mother's body--such name I give--the blameless soul
was gone for ever.
"It was my task to console the miserable daughter; and such was the
angelic softness of Alithea's disposition, that when the first burst of
grief was over, she yielded to be consoled. There was no hardness in her
regrets. She collected every relic, surrounded herself with every object
that might keep alive the memory of her parent. She talked of her
continually; and together we spoke of her virtues, her wisdom, her
ardent affection, and felt a thrilling, trembling pleasure in recalling
every act and word that most displayed her excellence. As we were thus
employed, I could contemplate and remark the change the interval of my
absence had operated in the beautiful girl--she had sprung into
womanhood; her figure was surrounded by a thousand graces; a tender
charm was diffused over each lineament and motion that intoxicated me
with delight. Before I loved--now I revered her; her mother's angelic
essence seemed united to hers, forming two in one. The sentiments these
beings had divided were now concentrated in her; and added to this, a
breathless adoration, a heart's devotion, which still even now dwells
beside her grave, and hallows every memory that remains.
"The cold tomb held the gentle form of Mrs. Rivers: each day we visited
it, and each day we collected fresh memorials, and exhausted ourselves
in talk concerning the lost one. Immediately on my arrival I had written
to my uncle, and the cause of my rash act pleading my excuse, it was
visited less severely than I expected; I was told that it was well that
I displayed affection and gratitude towards a too indulgent friend,
though my depravity betrayed itself in the manner even in which I
fulfilled a duty. I was bid at once return to the college--after a
fortnight had passed I obeyed; and now I lived on Alithea's letters,
which breathed only her eloquent regrets--already my own dream of life
was formed to be for ever her protector, her friend, her servant, her
all that she could deign to make me; to devote myself day after day,
year after year, through all my life to her only. While with her,
oppressed by grief as we both were, I did not understand my own
sensations, and the burning of my heart, which opened as a volcano when
I heard her only speak my name, or felt the touch of her soft hand. But,
returned to college, a veil fell from my eyes. I knew that I loved her,
I hailed the discovery with transport; I hugged to my bosom the idea
that she was the first and last being to awaken the tumultuous
sensations that took away my breath, dimmed my eyes, and dissolved me
into tenderness.
"Soon after her mother's death she was placed as a parlour boarder at a
school. I saw her once there, but I did not see her alone. I could not
speak--I could only gaze on her unexampled loveliness; nor, strange to
say, did I wish to disclose the passion that agitated me: she was so
young, so confiding, so innocent, I wished to be but as a brother to
her, for I had a sort of restless presentiment that distance and reserve
would ensue on my disclosing my other feeling. In fact, I was a mere
boy; I knew myself to be a friendless one and I desired time and
consideration, and the fortunate moment to occur, before I exchanged our
present guileless, but warm and tender attachment, for the hopes and
throes of a passion which demands a future, and is therefore full of
peril. True, when I left her I reproached myself for my cowardice; but I
would not write, and deferred, till I saw her, all explanation of my
feelings.
"Some months after, the time arrived when I was to embark for India.
Captain Rivers had returned, and inhabited the beloved cottage, and
Alithea dwelt with him. I went to see her previous to my departure. My
soul was in tumults: I desired to take her with me, but that was
impossible; and yet to leave her thus, and go into a far and long exile
away from her, was too frightful. I could not believe that I could exist
without the near hope and expectation of seeing her--without that
constant mingling of hearts which made her life-blood but as a portion
of my own. My resolution was easily made to claim her as mine, my
betrothed, my future bride; and I had a vague notion that, if I were
accepted, Captain Rivers would form some plan to prevent my going to
India, or to bring me back speedily. I arrived at the cottage, and the
first sight of her father was painful to me. He was rough and uncouth;
and though proud of his daughter, yet treated her with little of that
deference to which she had a right even from him--the more reason, I
thought, to make her mine; and that very evening I expressed my desire
to Captain Rivers: a horselaugh was the reply; he treated me partly as a
mad boy, partly as an impertinent beggar. My passions were roused, my
indignation burst all the fetters I sought to throw over it; I answered
haughtily--insolently--our words were loud and rude; I laughed at his
menaces and scoffed at his authority. I retorted scorn with scorn, till
the fiery old sailor was provoked to knock me down. In all this I
thought not of him in the sacred character of Alithea's father--I knew
but one parent for her; she had, as it were, joined us by making us
companions and friends--both children of her heart; she was gone, and
the rude tyrant who usurped her place excited only detestation and
loathing, from the insolence of his pretensions. Still, when he struck
me, his age and his infirmities--for he was lame--prevented my returning
the blow. I rose, and folding my arms, and looking at him with a smile
of ineffable contempt, I said, 'Poor, miserable man! do you think to
degrade me by a blow? but for pity, I could return it so that you would
never lift up your head again from that floor--I spare you--farewell.
You have taught me one lesson--I will die rather than leave Alithea in
the hands of a ruffian, such as you.' With these words I turned on my
heel, and walked out of the house.
"I repaired to a neighbouring public house, and wrote to Alithea,
asking, demanding an interview; I claimed it in her mother's name. Her
answer came, it was wetted with her tears--dear gentle being!--so alien
was her nature from all strife, that the very idea of contention shook
her delicate frame, and seemed almost to unhinge her reason. She
respected her father, and she loved me with an affection nourished by
long companionship and sacred associations. She promised to meet me if I
would abstain from again seeing her father.
"In the same wood, and at the same midnight hour as when before she came
to bring assistance and consolation to the outcast boy three years
before, I saw her again, and for the last time, before I left England.
Alithea had one fault, if such name may be given to a delicacy of
structure that rendered every clash of human passion terrifying. In
physical danger she could show herself a heroine; but awaken her terror
of moral evil, and she was hurried away beyond all self-command by
spasms of fear. Thus, as she came now clandestinely, under the cover of
night, her father's denunciations still sounding in her ears--the friend
of her youth banished--going away for ever; and that departure disturbed
by strife, her reason almost forsook her--she was bewildered--clinging
to me with tears--yet fearful at every minute of discovery. It was a
parting of anguish. She did not feel the passion that ruled my bosom.
Hers was a gentler, sisterly feeling; yet not the less intwined with the
principles of her being, and necessary to her existence. She lavished
caresses and words of endearment on me: she could not tear herself away;
yet she rejected firmly every idea of disobedience to her father; and
the burning expressions of my love found no echo in her bosom.
"Thus we parted; and a few days afterward I was on the wide sea, sailing
for my distant bourn. At first I had felt disappointed and angry; but
soon imagination shed radiance over what had seemed chilly and dim. I
felt her dear head repose on my heart; I saw her bright eyes
overbrimming with tears; and heard her sweet voice repeat again and
again her vow never to forget her brother, her more than brother, her
only friend; the only being left her to love. No wonder that, during the
various changes of a long voyage--during reveries indulged endlessly
through calm nights, and the mightier emotions awakened by storm and
danger, that the memory of this affection grew into a conviction that I
was loved, and a belief that she was mine for ever.
"I am not writing my life; and, but for the wish to appear less criminal
in my dear child's eyes, I had not written a word of the foregone pages,
but leaped at once to the mere facts that justify poor Alithea, and tell
the tragic story of her death. Years have passed, and oblivion has swept
away all memory of the events of which I speak. Who recollects the wise,
white lady of the secluded cot, and her houri daughter? This heart
alone; there they live enshrined. My dreams call up their forms. I visit
them in my solitary reveries. I try to forget the ensuing years, and to
become the heedless half-savage boy who listened with wonder, yet
conviction, to lessons of virtue; and to call back the melting of the
heart which the wise lady's words produced, and the bounding, wild joy I
felt beside her child. If there is a hell, it need no other torment but
memory to call back such scenes as these, and bid me remember the
destruction that ensued.
"I remained ten years in India, an officer in a regiment of the
company's cavalry. I saw a good deal of service; went through much
suffering; and doing my duty on the field of battle, or at the hour of
attack, I gained that approbation in the field which I lost when in
quarters by a sort of systematized insubordination, which was a part of
my untameable nature. In action even I went beyond my orders--however,
that was forgiven; but when in quarters, I took part with the weak, and
showed contempt for the powerful. I was looked upon as dangerous; and
the more so, that the violence of my temper often made my manner in a
high degree reprehensible. I attached myself to several natives; that
was a misdemeanor. I strove to inculcate European tastes and spirit,
enlightened views, and liberal policy, to one or two native princes,
whom, from some ill luck, the English governors wished to keep in
ignorance and darkness. I was for ever entangled in the intimacy, and
driven to try to serve the oppressed; while the affection I excited was
considered disaffection on my part to the rulers. Sometimes also I met
with ingratitude and treachery: my actions were misrepresented, either
by prejudice or malice; and my situation, of a subordinate officer,
without fortune, gave to the influence I acquired, through learning the
language and respecting the habits and feelings of the natives, an air
of something so inexplicable, as might, in the dark ages, have been
attributed to witchcraft, and in these enlightened times was considered
a tendency to the most dangerous intrigues. Having saved an old rajah's
life, and having taken great pains to extricate him from a difficulty in
which the Europeans had purposely entangled him, it became rumoured that
I aspired to succeed to a native principality, and I was peremptorily
ordered off to another station. My views were in diametrical opposition
to the then Indian government. My conversation was heedless--my youthful
imagination exalted by native magnificence; I own I often dreamed of the
practicability of driving the merchant sovereigns from Hindostan. There
was, as is the essence of my character, much boyish folly joined to
dangerous passion; all of which took the guise in my own heart of that
high heroic adventure with which I longed to adorn my life. A subaltern
in the company's service, I could never gain my Alithea, or do her the
honour with which I longed to crown her. The acquisition of power, of
influence, of station, would exalt me in her father's eyes--so much of
what was selfish mingled in my conduct--but I was too young and
impetuous to succeed. Those in power watched me narrowly. The elevation
of a day was always followed by a quick transfer to an unknown and
distant province.
"In all my wildest schemes the thought of Alithea reigned paramount. My
only object was to prove myself worthy of her; and my only dream for the
future was to make her mine for ever.
"A constancy of ten years, strung perpetually up to the height of
passion, may appear improbable; yet it was so. It was my nature to hold
an object with tenacious grasp--to show a proud contempt of
obstacles--to resolve on ultimate triumph. Besides this, the idea of
Alithea was so kneaded up and incorporate with my being, that my living
heart must have been searched and anatomized to its core, before the
portion belonging to her could have been divided from the rest. I
disdained the thought of every other woman. It was my pride to look
coldly on every charm, and to shut my heart against all but Alithea.
During the first years of my residence in India, I often wrote to her,
and pouring out my soul on paper, I conjured her to preserve herself for
me. I told her how each solitary jungle or mountain ravine spoke to me
of a secluded home with her; how every palace and gorgeous hall seemed
yet a shrine too humble for her. The very soul of passion breathed along
the lines I traced--they were such as an affianced lover would have
written, pure in their tenderness; but heartfelt, penetrating, and
eloquent; they were my dearest comfort. After long, wearisome
marches--after the dangers of an assault or a skirmish--after a day
spent among the sick or dying--in the midst of many disappointments and
harassing cares--during the storms of pride and the languor of despair,
it was my consolation to fly to her image and to recall the tender
happiness of reunion--to endeavour to convey to her how she was my hope
and aim--my fountain in the desert--the shadowy tree to shelter me from
the burning sun--the soft breeze to refresh me--the angelic visiter to
the unfortunate martyr. Not one of these letters ever reached her--her
father destroyed them all: on his head be the crime and the remorse of
his daughter's death! Fool and coward! would I shift to other shoulders
the heavy weight? No! no! crime and remorse still link me to her. Let
them eat into my frame fiery torture; they are better than
forgetfulness!
"I had two hopes in India: one was, to raise myself to such a station as
would render me worthy of Alithea in the eyes of Captain Rivers; the
other, to return to England--to find change there--to find love in her
heart--and to move her to quit all for me. By turns these two dreams
reigned over me; I indulged in them with complacency--I returned to them
with ardour--I nourished them with perseverance. I never saw a young
Indian mother with her infant, but my soul dissolved in tender fancies
of domestic union and bliss with Alithea. There was something in her
soft dark eye, and in the turn of her countenance, purely eastern; and
many a lovely, half-veiled face I could have taken for hers; many a
slight, symmetrical figure, round, elegant, and delicate, seemed her
own, as, with elastic, undulating motion, they passed on their way to
temple or feast. I cultivated all these fancies; they nourished my
fidelity, and made the thought of her the absolute law of my life.
"Ten years passed, and then news came that altered my whole situation.
My uncle and his only son died; the family estate devolved on me. I was
rich and free. Rich in my own eyes, and in the eyes of all to whom
competence is wealth. I felt sure that, with this inheritance, Captain
Rivers would not disdain me for his child. I gave up my commission
immediately, and returned to England.
"England and Alithea! How balmy, how ineffably sweet was the idea of
once more beholding the rural spot where she resided; of treading the
woodland paths with her--of visiting her dear mother's grave--of
renewing our old associations, and knitting our destinies inextricably
in one. It was a voyage of bliss. I longed for its conclusion; but
feeling that a pathway was stretched across the ocean, leading even into
her very presence, I blessed each wave or tract of azure sea we passed
over. The limitless Atlantic was my road to her, and became glorified as
the vision of the Hebrew shepherd boy; and yet loved with the same
homefelt sweetness as that with which I used to regard the lime-tree
walk that led to her garden-gate. I forgot the years that had elapsed
since we met; it was with difficulty that I forced my imagination to
remember that I should not find her pale mother beside her to sanctify
our union."