Elizabeth listened in silence. All that had passed made a deep
impression--from the moment that the solicitor had expressed a wish that
Falkner had a zealous friend to cross the Atlantic--till now, that he
himself dilated on the good that would result from representations being
clearly and fervently made to Osborne, she was revolving an idea that
absorbed her whole faculties.
This idea was no other than going to America herself. She had no doubt
that, seeing Osborne, she could persuade him, and the difficulties of
the journey appeared slight to her who had travelled so much. She asked
Falkner many questions, and his answers confirmed her more and more in
her plan. No objection presented itself to her mind; already she felt
sure of success. There was scarcely time, it was true, for the voyage;
but she hoped that the trial might be again deferred, if reasonable
hopes were held out of Osborne's ultimate arrival. It was painful to
leave Falkner without a friend, but the object of her journey was
paramount even to this consideration; but it must, it should be
undertaken. Still she said nothing of her scheme, and Falkner could not
guess at what was passing in her mind.
Wrapped in the revery suggested by such a plan, she returned home in the
evening, without thinking of the apparition of Neville, which had so
filled her mind in the morning. It was not till at her own door that the
thought glanced through her mind, and she remembered that she had seen
nothing of him--she looked across the open space where he had stood the
evening before. It was entirely vacant. She felt disappointed and
saddened; and she began to reflect on her total friendlessness--no one
to aid her in preparations for her voyage--none to advise--her sole
resource was in hirelings. But her independent, firm spirit quickly
threw off this weakness, and she began a note to Mr. Colville, asking
him to call on her, as she wished to arrange everything definitively
before she spoke to Falkner. As she wrote, she heard a rapid, decided
step in her quiet street, followed by a hurried yet gentle knock at her
door. She started up. "It is he!" the words were on her lips, when
Gerard entered; she held out her hand, gladness thrilling through her
whole frame, her heart throbbing wildly--her eyes lighted up with joy.
"This is indeed kind," she cried. "Oh, Mr. Neville, how happy your visit
makes me!"
He did not look happy; he had grown paler and thinner, and the
melancholy which had sat on his countenance before, banished for a time
by her, had returned, with the addition of a look of wildness, that
reminded her of the youth of Baden; Elizabeth was shocked to remark
these traces of suffering; and her next impulse was to ask, "What has
happened? I fear some new misfortune has occurred."
"It is the property of misfortune to be ever new," he replied, "to be
always producing fresh and more miserable results. I have no right to
press my feelings on you; your burden is sufficient; but I could not
refrain any longer from seeing in what way adversity had exerted its
pernicious influence over you."
His manner was gloomy and agitated; she, resigned, devoted to her
duties; commanding herself, day by day, to fulfil her task of patience,
and of acquiring cheerfulness for Falkner's sake; she imagined that some
fresh disaster must be the occasion of these marks of emotion. She did
not know that fruitless struggles to alleviate the evils of her
situation, vain broodings over its horrors, and bitter regret at losing
her, had robbed him of sleep, of appetite, of all repose. "I despise
myself for my weakness," he said, "when I see your fortitude. You are
more than woman, more than human being ever was, and you must feel the
utmost contempt for one whom fortune bends and breaks as it does me. You
are well, however, and half my dreams of misery have been false and
vain. God guards and preserves you: I ought to have placed more faith in
him."
"But tell me, dear Mr. Neville, tell me, what has happened?"
"Nothing!" he replied; "and does not that imply the worst? I cannot make
up my mind to endure the visitation of ill fallen upon us; it drives me
from place to place like an unlaid ghost. I am very selfish to speak in
this manner. Yet it is your sufferings that fill my mind to bursting;
were all the evil poured on my own head, while you were spared, welcome,
most welcome would be the bitterest infliction! but you, Elizabeth, you
are my cruel father's victim, and the future will be more hideous than
the hideous present!"
Elizabeth was shocked and surprised; what could he mean? "The future,"
she replied, "will bring my dear father's liberation; how then can that
be so bad?"
He looked earnestly and inquiringly on her. "Yes," she continued, "my
sorrows, heavy as they are, have not that additional pang; I have no
doubt of the ultimate justice that will be rendered my father. We have
much to endure in the interim, much that undermines the fortitude and
visits the heart with sickening throes; there is no help but patience;
let us have patience, and this adversity will pass away; the prison and
the trial will be over, and freedom and security again be ours."
"I see how it is," replied Neville; "we each live in a world of our own,
and it is wicked in me to give you a glimpse of the scene as it is
presented to me."
"Yet speak; explain!" said Elizabeth; "you have frightened me so much
that any explanation must be better than the thoughts which your words,
your manner, suggest."
"Nay," said Neville, "do not let my follies infect you. Your views, your
hopes, are doubtless founded on reason. It is, if you will forgive the
allusion that may seem too light for so sad a subject, but the old story
of the silver and brazen shield. I see the dark, the fearful side of
things; I live among your enemies--that is, the enemies of Mr. Falkner.
I hear of nothing but his guilt, and the expiation prepared for it. I am
maddened by all I hear.
"I have implored my father not to pursue his vengeance. Convinced as I
am of the truth of Mr. Falkner's narration, the idea that one so gifted
should be made over to the fate that awaits him is abhorrent; and when I
think that you are involved in such a scene of wrong and horror, my
blood freezes in my veins. I have implored my father, I have quarrelled
with him, I have made Sophia advocate the cause of justice against
malice; all in vain. Could you see the old man--my father I mean; pardon
my irreverence--how he revels in the demoniacal hope of revenge, and
with what hideous delight he gloats upon the detail of ignominy to be
inflicted on one so much his superior in every noble quality, you would
feel the loathing I do. He heaps sarcasm and contempt on my feeble
spirit, as he names my pardon of my mother's destroyer, my esteem for
him, and my sympathy for you; but that does not touch me. It is the
knowledge that he will succeed, and you be lost and miserable for ever,
that drives me to desperation.
"I fancied that these thoughts must pursue you even more painfully than
they do me. I saw you writhing beneath the tortures of despair, wasting
away under the influence of intense misery. You haunted my dreams,
accompanied by every image of horror--sometimes you were bleeding,
ghastly, dying--sometimes you took my poor mother's form, as Falkner
describes it, snatched cold and pale from the waves--other visions
flitted by, still more frightful. Despairing of moving my father,
abhorring the society of every human being, I have been living for the
last month at Dromore. A few days ago my father arrived there. I
wondered till I heard the cause. The time for expecting Osborne had
arrived. As vultures have instinct for carrion, so he swooped down at
the far off scent of evil fortune; he had an emissary at Liverpool, on
the watch to hear of this man's arrival. Disgusted at this foul appetite
for evil, I left him. I came here--only to see you, to gaze on you afar,
was to purify the world of the 'blasts from hell' which the bad passions
I have so long contemplated spread round me. My father learned whither I
had gone; I had a letter from him this morning--you may guess at its
contents."
"He triumphs in Osborne's refusal to appear," said Elizabeth, who was
much moved by the picture of hatred and malice Neville had presented to
her; and trembled from head to foot as she listened, from the violent
emotions his account excited, and the vehemence of his manner as he
spoke.
"He does indeed triumph," replied Neville; "and you--you and Mr.
Falkner, do you not despair?"
"If you could see my dear father," said Elizabeth, her courage returning
at the thought, "you would see how innocence and a noble mind can
sustain; at the worst, he does not despair. He bears the present with
fortitude, he looks to the future with resignation. His soul is firm,
his spirit inflexible."
"And you share these feelings?"
"Partly I do, and partly I have other thoughts to support me. Osborne's
cowardice is a grievous blow, but it must be remedied. The man we sent
to bring him was too easily discouraged. Other means must be tried. I
shall go to America, I shall see Osborne, and you cannot doubt of my
success."
"You?" cried Neville; "you to go to America? you to follow the traces of
a man who hides himself? Impossible! This is worse madness than all.
Does Falkner consent to so senseless an expedition?"
"You use strong expressions," interrupted Elizabeth.
"I do," he replied; "and I have a right to do so--I beg your pardon. But
my meaning is justifiable--you must not undertake this voyage. It is as
useless as improper. Suppose yourself arrived on the shores of wide
America. You seek a man who conceals himself, you know not where: can
you perambulate large cities, cross wide extents of country, go from
town to town in search of him? It is by personal exertion alone that he
can be found; and your age and sex wholly prevent that."
"Yet I shall go," said Elizabeth, thoughtfully; "so much is left undone,
because we fancy it impossible to do; which, upon endeavour, is found
plain and easy. If insurmountable obstacles oppose themselves, I must
submit, but I see none yet; I have not the common fears of a person
whose life has been spent in one spot; I have been a traveller, and know
that, but for the fatigue, it is as easy to go a thousand miles as a
hundred. If there are dangers and difficulties, they will appear light
to me, encountered for my dear father's sake."
She looked beautiful as an angel as she spoke; her independent spirit
had nothing rough in its texture. It did not arise from a love of
opposition, but from a belief that, in fulfilling a duty, she could not
be opposed or injured. Her fearlessness was that of a generous heart,
that could not believe in evil intentions. She explained more fully to
her friend the reasons that induced her determination. She repeated
Falkner's account of Osborne's character, the injury that it was
believed would arise from his refusal to appear, and the probable
facility of persuading him, were he addressed by one zealous in the
cause.
Neville listened attentively. She paused--he was lost in thought, and
made no reply--she continued to speak, but he continued mute, till at
last she said, "You are conquered, I know--you yield, and agree that my
journey is a duty, a necessity."
"We are both apt, it would seem," he replied, "to see our duties in a
strong light, and to make sudden, or they may be called rash,
resolutions. Perhaps we both go too far, and are in consequence
reprehended by those about us: in each other, then, let us find
approval--you must not go to America, for your going would be
useless--with all your zeal you could not succeed. But I will go. Of
course this act will be treated as madness, or worse, by Sir Boyvill and
the rest--but my own mind assures me that I do right. For many years I
devoted myself to discovering my mother's fate. I have discovered it.
Falkner's narrative tells all. But clear and satisfactory as that is to
me, others choose to cast frightful doubts over its truth, and conjure
up images the most revolting. Have they any foundation? I do not believe
it--but many do--and all assert that the approaching trial alone can
establish the truth. This trial is but a mockery, unless it is fair and
complete--it cannot be that without Osborne. Surely, then, it neither
misbecomes me as her son, nor as the son of Sir Boyvill, to undertake
any action that will tend to clear up the mystery.
"I am resolved--I shall go--be assured that I shall not return without
Osborne. You will allow me to take your place, to act for you--you do
not distrust my zeal?"
Elizabeth had regarded her own resolves as the simple dictates of reason
and duty. But her heart was deeply touched by Neville's offer; tears
rushed into her eyes as she replied, in a voice faltering with emotion,
"I fear this cannot be; it will meet with too much opposition; but
never, never can I repay your generosity in but imagining so great a
service."
"It is a service to both," he said; "and as to the opposition I shall
meet, that is my affair. You know that nothing will stop me when once
resolved. And I am resolved. The inner voice that cannot be mistaken
assures me that I do right--I ask no other approval. A sense of justice,
perhaps of compassion, for the original author of all our wretchedness,
ought probably to move me; but I will not pretend to be better than I
am; were Falkner alone concerned, I fear I should be lukewarm. But not
one cloud, nor the shadow of a cloud, shall rest on my mother's fate.
All shall be clear, all universally acknowledged; nor shall your life be
blotted and your heart-broken by the wretched fate of him to whom you
cling with matchless fidelity. He is innocent, I know; but if the world
thinks and acts by him as a murderer, how could you look up again?
Through you I succeeded in my task; to you I owe unspeakable gratitude,
which it is my duty to repay. Yet, away with such expressions. You know
that my desire to serve you is boundless; that I love you beyond
expression; that every injury you receive is trebled upon me--that vain
were every effort of self-command; I must do that thing that would
benefit you, though the whole world rose to forbid. You are of more
worth in your innocence and nobleness, than a nation of men such as my
father. Do you think I can hesitate in my determinations thus founded,
thus impelled?"
More vehement, more impassioned than Elizabeth, Neville bore down her
objections, while he awakened all her tenderness and gratitude: "Now I
prove myself your friend," he said, proudly; "now Heaven affords me
opportunity to serve you, and I thank it."
He looked so happy, so wildly delighted, while a more still but not less
earnest sense of joy filled her heart. They were young, and they
loved--this of itself was bliss; but the cruel circumstances around them
added to their happiness by drawing them closer together, and giving
fervour and confidence to their attachment; and now that he saw a mode
of serving her, and she felt entire reliance on his efforts, the last
veil and barrier fell from between them, and their hearts became united
by that perfect love which can result alone from entire confidence and
acknowledged unshackled sympathy.
Always actuated by generous impulses, but often rash in his
determinations, and impetuous in their fulfilment; full of the warmest
sensibility, hating that the meanest thing that breathed should endure
pain, and feeling the most poignant sympathy for all suffering, Neville
had been maddened by his own thoughts, while he brooded over the
position in which Elizabeth was placed. Not one of those various
circumstances that alleviate disaster to those who endure it, presented
themselves to his imagination--he saw adversity in its most hideous
form, without relief or disguise--names and images appending to
Falkner's frightful lot, which he and Elizabeth carefully banished from
their thoughts, haunted him. The fate of the basest felon hung over the
prisoner--Neville believed that it must inevitably fall on him; he often
wondered that he did not contrive to escape; that Elizabeth, devoted and
heroic, did not contrive some means of throwing open his dungeon's
doors. He had endeavoured to open his father's eyes, to soften his
heart, in vain. He had exerted himself to discover whether any trace of
long past circumstances existed that might tend to acquit Falkner. He
had gone to Treby, visited the graves of the hapless parents of
Elizabeth, seen Mrs. Baker, and gathered there the account of his
landing; but nothing helped to elucidate the mystery of his mother's
death; Falkner's own account was the only trace left behind; that bore
the stamp of truth in every line, and appeared to him so honourable a
tribute to poor Alithea's memory, that he looked with disgust on his
father's endeavours to cast upon it suspicions and interpretations the
most hideous and appalling.
In the first instance, he had been bewildered by Sir Boyvill's
sophistry, and half conquered by his plausible arguments. But a short
time, and the very circumstance of Elizabeth's fidelity to his cause
sufficed to show him the baseness of his motives, and the real injury he
did his mother's fame.
Resolved to clear the minds of other men from the prejudice against the
prisoner thus spread abroad, and at least to secure a fair trial,
Neville made no secret of his belief that Falkner was innocent. He
represented him everywhere as a gentleman--a man of humanity and
honour--whose crime ought to receive its punishment from his own
conscience, and at the hand of the husband or son of the victim in the
field; and whom, to pursue as his father did, was at once futile and
disgraceful. Sir Boyvill, irritated by Falkner's narrative; his vanity
wounded to the quick by the avowed indifference of his wife, was enraged
beyond all bounds by the opposition of his son. Unable to understand his
generous nature, and relying on his previous zeal for his mother's
cause, he had not doubted but that his revenge would find a' ready ally
in him. His present arguments, his esteem for their enemy, his desire
that he should be treated with a forbearance which, between gentlemen,
was but an adherence to the code of honour--appeared to Sir Boyvill
insanity, and worse--a weakness the most despicable, a want of
resentment the most low-minded. But he cared not--the game was in his
hands--revelling in the idea of his enemy's ignominious sufferings, he
more than half persuaded himself that his accusation was true, and that
the punishment of a convicted felon would at last satisfy his thirst for
revenge. A feeble old man, tottering on the verge of the grave, he
gloried to think that his grasp was still deadly, his power acknowledged
in throes of agony, by him by whom he had been injured.
Returning to Dromore from Carlisle, Gerard sought his father. Osborne's
refusal to appear crowned Sir Boyvill's utmost hopes; and his sarcastic
congratulations, when he saw his son, expressed all the malice of his
heart. Gerard replied with composure, that he did indeed fear that this
circumstance would prove fatal to the course of justice; but that it
must not tamely be submitted to, and that he himself was going to
America to induce Osborne to come, that nothing might be wanting to
elucidate the mystery of his mother's fate, and to render the coming
trial full, fair, and satisfactory. Such an announcement rendered, for a
moment, Sir Boyvill speechless with rage. A violent scene ensued.
Gerard, resolved, and satisfied of the propriety of his resolution, was
calm and firm. Sir Boyvill, habituated to the use of vituperative
expressions, boiled over with angry denunciations and epithets of abuse.
He called his son the disgrace of his family--the opprobrium of
mankind--the detractor of his mother's fame. Gerard smiled; yet, at
heart, he deeply felt the misery of thus for ever finding an opponent in
his father, and it required all the enthusiasm and passion of his nature
to banish the humiliating and saddening influence of Sir Boyvill's
indignation.
They parted worse friends than ever. Sir Boyvill set out for town;
Gerard repaired to Liverpool. The wind was contrary--there was little
hope of change. He thought that it would conduce to his success in
America, if he spent the necessary interval in seeing Hoskins again; and
also in consulting with his friend, the American minister; so, in all
haste, having first secured his passage on board a vessel that was to
sail in four or five days, he also set out for London.