I do but hide Under these words, like embers, every spark Of that which
has consumed me. Quick and dark The grave is yawning;--as its roof shall
cover My limbs with dust and worms, under and over, So let oblivion hide
this grief. Julian and Maddalo.
With thee, the very future fled, I stand amid the past alone; A tomb
which still shall guard the dead Tho’ every earthlier trace be flown,
A tomb o’er which the weeds that love Decay--their wild luxuriance
wreathe! The cold and callous stone above--And only thou and death
beneath. From Unpublished Poems by ------.
THE HISTORY OF SIR REGINALD GLANVILLE.
“You remember my character at school--the difficulty with which you
drew me from the visionary and abstracted loneliness which, even at that
time, was more consonant to my taste, than all the sports and society
resorted to by other boys--and the deep, and, to you, inexplicable
delight with which I returned to my reveries and solitude again. That
character has continued through life the same; circumstances have
strengthened, not altered it. So has it been with you; the temper, the
habits, the tastes, so strongly contrasted with mine in boyhood, have
lost nothing of that contrast. Your ardour for the various ambition of
life is still the antipodes to my indifference; your daring, restless,
thoughtful, resolution in the pursuit, still shames my indolence and
abstraction. You are still the votary of the world, but will become its
conqueror--I its fugitive--and shall die its victim.
“After we parted at school, I went for a short time to a tutor’s
in--shire. Of this place I soon grew weary; and my father’s death
leaving me in a great measure at my own disposal, I lost no time in
leaving it. I was seized with that mania for travel common enough to
all persons of my youth and disposition. My mother allowed me an almost
unlimited command over the fortune hereafter to be my own; and, yielding
to my wishes, rather than her fears, she suffered me, at the age of
eighteen, to set out for the Continent alone. Perhaps the quiet and
reserve of my character made her think me less exposed to the dangers of
youth, than if I had been of a more active and versatile temper. This
is no uncommon mistake; a serious and contemplative disposition is,
however, often the worst formed to acquire readily the knowledge of
the world, and always the most calculated to suffer deeply from the
experience.
“I took up my residence for some time at Spa. It is, you know, perhaps,
a place dull enough to make gambling the only amusement; every one
played--and I did not escape the contagion; nor did I wish it: for, like
the minister Godolphin, I loved gaming for its own sake, because it was
a substitute for conversation. This habit brought me acquainted with Mr.
Tyrrell, who was then staying at Spa; he had not, at that time, quite
dissipated his fortune, but was daily progressing to so desirable a
consummation. A gambler’s acquaintance is readily made, and easily kept,
provided you gamble too.
“We became as intimate as the reserve of my habits ever suffered me to
become with any one, but you. He was many years older than me--had seen
a great deal of the world--had mixed much in its best societies, and, at
that time, whatever was the grossierete of his mind, had little of the
coarseness of manner which very soon afterwards distinguished him;
evil communication works rapidly in its results. Our acquaintance was,
therefore, natural enough, especially when it is considered that my
purse was entirely at his disposal--for borrowing is twice blessed, in
him that takes and him that gives--the receiver becomes complaisant and
conceding, and the lender thinks favourably of one he has obliged.
“We parted at Spa, under a mutual promise to write. I forget if this
promise was kept--probably not; we were not, however, the worse friends
for being bad correspondents. I continued my travels for about another
year; I then returned to England, the same melancholy and dreaming
enthusiast as before. It is true that we are the creatures of
circumstances; but circumstances are also, in a great measure, the
creatures of us. I mean, they receive their colour from the previous
bent of our own minds; what raises one would depress another, and what
vitiates my neighbour might correct me. Thus the experience of the
world makes some persons more worldly--others more abstracted, and the
indulgence of the senses becomes a violence to one mind, and a second
nature to another. As for me, I had tasted all the pleasures youth and
opulence can purchase, and was more averse to them than ever. I had
mixed with many varieties of men--I was still more rivetted to the
monotony of self.
“I cannot hope, while I mention these peculiarities, that I am a very
uncommon character; I believe the present age has produced many such.
Some time hence, it will be a curious inquiry to ascertain the causes
of that acute and sensitive morbidity of mind, which has been, and still
is, so epidemic a disease. You know me well enough to believe, that I am
not fond of the cant of assuming an artificial character, or of creating
a fictitious interest; and I am far from wishing to impose upon you
a malady of constitution for a dignity of mind. You must pardon my
prolixity. I own that it is very painful to me to come to the main part
of my confessions, and I am endeavouring to prepare myself by lingering
over the prelude.”
Glanville paused here for a few moments. In spite of the sententious
coolness with which he pretended to speak, I saw that he was powerfully
and painfully affected.
“Well,” he continued, “to resume the thread of my narrative; after I had
stayed some weeks with my mother and sister, I took advantage of
their departure for the continent, and resolved to make a tour through
England. Rich people, and I have always been very rich, get exceedingly
tired of the embarrassment of their riches. I seized with delight at
the idea of travelling without carriages and servants; I took merely a
favourite horse, and the black dog, poor Terror, which you see now at my
feet.
“The day I commenced this plan was to me the epoch of a new and terrible
existence. However, you must pardon me if I am not here sufficiently
diffuse. Suffice it, that I became acquainted with a being whom, for
the first and only time in my life, I loved! This miniature attempts to
express her likeness; the initials at the back, interwoven with my own,
are hers.”
“Yes,” said I, incautiously, “they are the initials of Gertrude
Douglas.”
“What!” cried Glanville, in a loud tone, which he instantly checked, and
continued in an indrawn, muttered whisper: “How long is it since I heard
that name! and now--now--” he broke off abruptly, and then said, with a
calmer voice, “I know not how you have learnt her name; perhaps you will
explain?”
“From Thornton,” said I.
“And has he told you more?” cried Glanville, as if gasping for
breath--the “history--the dreadful--”
“Not a word,” said I, hastily; “he was with me when I found the picture,
and he explained the initials.”
“It is well!” answered Glanville, recovering himself; “you will see
presently if I have reason to love that those foul and sordid lips
should profane the story I am about to relate. Gertrude was an only
daughter; though of gentle blood, she was no match for me, either in
rank or fortune. Did I say just now that the world had not altered me?
See my folly; one year before I saw her, and I should not have thought
her, but myself honoured by a marriage;--twelve little months had
sufficed to--God forgive me! I took advantage of her love--her
youth--her innocence--she fled with me--but not to the altar!”
Again Glanville paused, and again, by a violent effort, conquered his
emotion, and proceeded:
“Never let vice be done by halves--never let a man invest all his purer
affections in the woman he ruins--never let him cherish the kindness,
if he gratifies the selfishness, of his heart. A profligate, who really
loves his victim, is one of the most wretched of beings. In spite of my
successful and triumphant passion--in spite of the delirium of the first
intoxication of possession, and of the better and deeper delight of
a reciprocity of thought--feeling, sympathy, for the first time,
found;--in the midst of all the luxuries my wealth could produce, and of
the voluptuous and spring-like hues with which youth, health, and first
love, clothe the earth which the loved one treads, and the air which she
inhales: in spite of these, in spite of all, I was any thing but happy.
If Gertrude’s cheek seemed a shade more pale, or her eye less bright, I
remembered the sacrifice she had made me, and believed that she felt it
too. It was in vain, that, with a tender and generous devotion--never
found but in woman--she assured me that my love was a recompense for
all; the more touching was her tenderness, the more poignant my remorse.
I never loved but her; I have never, therefore, entered into the
common-place of passion, and I cannot, even to this day, look upon her
sex as ours do in general. I thought, I think so still, that ingratitude
to a woman is often a more odious offence--I am sure it contains a more
painful penalty--than ingratitude to a man. But enough of this; if you
know me, you can penetrate the nature of my feelings--if not, it is in
vain to expect your sympathy.
“I never loved living long in one place. We travelled over the greater
part of England and France. What must be the enchantment of love, when
accompanied with innocence and joy, when, even in sin, in remorse, in
grief, it brings us a rapture to which all other things are tame. Oh!
those were moments steeped in the very elixir of life; overflowing with
the hoarded fondness and sympathies of hearts too full for words, and
yet too agitated for silence, when we journeyed alone, and at night, and
as the shadows and stillness of the waning hours gathered round us, drew
closer to each other, and concentrated this breathing world in the deep
and embracing sentiment of our mutual love! It was then that I laid my
burning temples on her bosom, and felt, while my hand clasped her’s,
that my visions were realized, and my wandering spirit had sunk unto its
rest.
“I remember well that, one night, we were travelling through one of the
most beautiful parts of England it was in the very height and flush
of summer, and the moon (what scene of love--whether in reality, or
romance--has any thing of tenderness, or passion, or divinity, where her
light is not!) filled the intense skies of June with her presence, and
cast a sadder and paler beauty over Gertrude’s cheek. She was always of
a melancholy and despondent temper; perhaps, for that reason, she was
more congenial to my own; and when I gazed upon her that night, I was
not surprised to see her eyes filled with tears. ‘You will laugh at me,’
she said, as I kissed them off, and inquired into the cause; ‘but I feel
a presentiment that I cannot shake off; it tells me that you will travel
this road again before many months are past, and that I shall not
be with you, perhaps not upon the earth.’ She was right in all her
foreboding, but the suggestion of her death;--that came later.
“We took up our residence for some time at a beautiful situation, a
short distance from a small watering place. Here, to my great surprise,
I met with Tyrrell. He had come there partly to see a relation from whom
he had some expectations, and partly to recruit his health, which was
much broken by his irregularities and excesses. I could not refuse to
renew my old acquaintance with him, and, indeed, I thought him too much
of a man of the world, and of society, to feel with him that particular
delicacy, in regard to Gertrude, which made me in general shun
all intercourse with my former friends. He was in great pecuniary
embarrassment--much more deeply so than I then imagined; for I believed
the embarrassment to be only temporary. However, my purse was then, as
before, at his disposal, and he did not scruple to avail himself
very largely of my offers. He came frequently to our house; and poor
Gertrude, who thought I had, for her sake, made a real sacrifice in
renouncing my acquaintance, endeavoured to conquer her usual diffidence,
and that more painful feeling than diffidence, natural to her station,
and even to affect a pleasure in the society of my friend, which she was
very far from feeling.
“I was detained at--for several weeks by Gertrude’s confinement. The
child--happy being!--died a week after its birth. Gertrude was still
in bed, and unable to leave it, when I received a letter from Ellen, to
say, that my mother was then staying at Toulouse, and dangerously ill;
if I wished once more to see her, Ellen besought me to lose no time in
setting off for the continent. You may imagine my situation, or rather
you cannot, for you cannot conceive the smallest particle of that
intense love I bore to Gertrude. To you--to any other man, it might seem
no extraordinary hardship to leave her even for an uncertain period--to
me it was like tearing away the very life from my heart.
“I procured her a sort of half companion, and half nurse; I provided for
her every thing that the most anxious and fearful love could suggest;
and with a mind full of forebodings too darkly to be realized hereafter,
I hastened to the nearest seaport, and set sail for France.
“When I arrived at Toulouse my mother was much better, but still in a
very uncertain and dangerous state of health. I stayed with her for
more than a month, during which time every post brought me a line from
Gertrude, and bore back a message from ‘my heart to her’s’ in return.
This was no mean consolation, more especially when each letter spoke of
increasing health and strength. At the month’s end, I was preparing to
return--my mother was slowly recovering, and I no longer had any fears
on her account; but, there are links in our destiny fearfully interwoven
with each other, and ending only in the anguish of our ultimate doom.
The day before that fixed for my departure, I had been into a house
where an epidemic disease raged; that night I complained of oppressive
and deadly illness--before morning I was in a high fever.
“During the time I was sensible of my state, I wrote constantly to
Gertrude, and carefully concealed my illness; but for several days I was
delirious. When I recovered I called eagerly for my letters--there were
none--none! I could not believe I was yet awake; but days still passed
on, and not a line from England--from Gertrude. The instant I was able,
I insisted upon putting horses to my carriage; I could bear no longer
the torture of my suspense. By the most rapid journeys my debility would
allow me to bear, I arrived in England. I travelled down to--by the same
road that I had gone over with her; the words of her foreboding, at
that time, sunk like ice into my heart, ‘You will travel this road again
before many months are past, and I shall not be with you: perhaps, I
shall not be upon the earth.’ At that thought I could have called unto
the grave to open for me. Her unaccountable and lengthened silence,
in spite of all the urgency and entreaties of my letters for a reply,
filled me with presentiments the most fearful. Oh, God--oh, God, they
were nothing to the truth!
“At last I arrived at--; my carriage stopped at the very house--my whole
frame was perfectly frozen with dread--I trembled from limb to limb--the
ice of a thousand winters seemed curdling through my blood. The bell
rung--once, twice--no answer. I would have leaped out of the carriage--I
would have forced an entrance, but I was unable to move. A man fettered
and spell-bound by an incubus, is less helpless than I was. At last, an
old female I had never seen before, appeared.
“‘Where is she? How!’ I could utter no more--my eyes were fixed upon the
inquisitive and frightened countenance opposite to my own. Those eyes, I
thought, might have said all that my lips could not; I was deceived--the
old woman understood me no more than I did her; another person
appeared--I recognized the face--it was that of a girl, who had been one
of our attendants. Will you believe, that at that sight, the sight of
one I had seen before, and could associate with the remembrance of the
breathing, the living, the present Gertrude, a thrill of joy flashed
across me--my fears seemed to vanish--my spell to cease?
“I sprung from the carriage; I caught the girl by the robe. ‘Your
mistress,’ said I, ‘your mistress--she is well--she is alive--speak,
speak?’ The girl shrieked out; my eagerness, and, perhaps, my emaciated
and altered appearance, terrified her; but she had the strong nerves
of youth, and was soon re-assured. She requested me to step in, and
she would tell me all. My wife (Gertrude always went by that name), was
alive, and, she believed, well, but she had left that place some weeks
since. Trembling, and still fearful, but, comparatively, in Heaven, to
my former agony, I followed the girl and the old woman into the house.
“The former got me some water. ‘Now,’ said I, when I had drank a long
and hearty draught, ‘I am ready to hear all--my wife has left this
house, you say--for what place?’ The girl hesitated and looked down;
the old woman, who was somewhat deaf, and did not rightly understand my
questions, or the nature of the personal interest I had in the reply,
answered,--‘What does the gentleman want? the poor young lady who was
last here? Lord help her!’
“‘What of her?’ I called out, in a new alarm. ‘What of her? Where has
she gone? Who took her away?’
“‘Who took her?’ mumbled the old woman, fretful at my impatient tone;
‘Who took her? why, the mad doctor, to be sure!’
“I heard no more; my frame could support no longer the agonies my mind
had undergone; I fell lifeless on the ground.
“When I recovered, it was in the dead of night. I was in bed, the old
woman and the girl were at my side. I rose slowly and calmly. You know,
all men who have ever suffered much, know the strange anomalies of
despair--the quiet of our veriest anguish. Deceived by my bearing, I
learned, by degrees, from my attendants, that Gertrude had some weeks
since betrayed sudden symptoms of insanity; that these, in a very few
hours, arose to an alarming pitch.--From some reason the woman could
not explain, she had, a short time before, discarded the companion I had
left with her; she was, therefore, alone among servants. They sent
for the ignorant practitioners of the place; they tried their nostrums
without success; her madness increased; her attendants, with that
superstitious horror of insanity, common to the lower classes, became
more and more violently alarmed; the landlady insisted on her removal;
and--and--I told you, Peham--I told you--they sent her away--sent her to
a madhouse! All this I listened to!--all!--aye, and patiently! I noted
down the address of her present abode; it was about the distance of
twenty miles from--. I ordered fresh horses and set off immediately.
“I arrived there at day-break. It was a large, old house, which, like a
French hotel, seemed to have no visible door; dark and gloomy, the pile
appeared worthy of the purpose to which it was devoted. It was a long
time before we aroused any one to answer our call; at length, I was
ushered into a small parlour--how minutely I remember every article in
the room; what varieties there are in the extreme passions! sometimes
the same feeling will deaden all the senses--sometimes render them a
hundred fold more acute!--
“At last, a man of a smiling and rosy aspect appeared. He pointed to a
chair--rubbed his hands--and begged me to unfold my business; few words
sufficed to do that. I requested to see his patient; I demanded by what
authority she had been put under his care. The man’s face altered. He
was but little pleased with the nature of my visit. ‘The lady,’ he said,
coolly, ‘had been entrusted to his care, with an adequate remuneration,
by Mr. Tyrrell; without that gentleman’s permission he could not
think even of suffering me to see her. I controlled my passion; I knew
something, if not of the nature of private mad-houses, at least of that
of mankind. I claimed his patient as my wife; I expressed myself obliged
by his care, and begged his acceptance of a further remuneration,
which I tendered, and which was eagerly accepted. The way was now
cleared--there is no hell to which a golden branch will not win your
admittance.
“The man detained me no longer; he hastened to lead the way. We passed
through various long passages; sometimes the low moan of pain and
weakness came upon my ear--sometimes the confused murmur of the idiot’s
drivelling soliloquy. From one passage, at right angles with the one
through which we proceeded, came a fierce and thrilling shriek; it sunk
at once into silence--perhaps by the lash!
“We were now in a different department of the building--all was
silence--hushed deep--breathless: this seemed to me more awful than the
terrible sounds I had just heard. My guide went slowly on, sometimes
breaking the stillness of the dim gallery by the jingle of his
keys--sometimes by a muttered panegyric on himself and his humanity. I
neither heeded nor answered him.
“We read in the annals of the Inquisition, of every limb, nerve, sinew
of the victim, being so nicely and accurately strained to their utmost,
that the frame would not bear the additional screwing of a single hair
breadth. Such seemed my state. We came to a small door, at the right
hand; it was the last but one in the passage. We paused before it.
‘Stop,’ said I, ‘for one moment:’ and I was so faint and sick at heart,
that I leaned against the wall to recover myself, before I let him open
the door: when he did, it was a greater relief than I can express,
to see that all was utterly dark. ‘Wait, Sir,’ said the guide, as he
entered; and a sullen noise told me that he was unbarring the heavy
shutter.
“Slowly the grey cold light of the morning broke in: a dark figure was
stretched upon a wretched bed, at the far end of the room. She raised
herself at the sound. She turned her face towards me; I did not fall,
nor faint, nor shriek; I stood motionless, as if fixed into stone; and
yet it was Gertrude upon whom I gazed! Oh, Heaven! who but myself could
have recognized her? Her cheek was as the cheek of the dead--the hueless
skin clung to the bone--the eye was dull and glassy for one moment, the
next it became terribly and preternaturally bright--but not with the ray
of intellect, or consciousness, or recognition. She looked long and hard
at me; a voice, hollow and broken, but which still penetrated my heart,
came forth through the wan lips, that scarcely moved with the exertion.
‘I am very cold,’ it said--‘but if I complain, you will beat me.’ She
fell down again upon the bed, and hid her face.
“My guide, who was leaning carelessly by the window, turned to me with
a sort of smirk--‘This is her way, Sir,’ he said; ‘her madness is of a
very singular description: we have not, as yet, been able to discover
how far it extends; sometimes she seems conscious of the past, sometimes
utterly oblivious of every thing: for days she is perfectly silent, or,
at least, says nothing more than you have just heard; but, at times, she
raves so violently, that--that--but I never use force where it can be
helped.’
“I looked at the man, but I could not answer, unless I had torn him to
pieces on the spot. I turned away hastily from the room; but I did not
quit the house without Gertrude--I placed her in the carriage, by my
side--notwithstanding all the protestations and fears of the keeper:
these were readily silenced by the sum I gave him; it was large enough
to have liberated half his household. In fact, I gathered from his
conversation, that Tyrrell had spoken of Gertrude as an unhappy female
whom he himself had seduced, and would now be rid of. I thank you,
Pelham, for that frown, but keep your indignation till a fitter season
for it.
“I took my victim, for I then regarded her as such, to a secluded and
lonely spot: I procured for her whatever advice England could afford;
all was in vain. Night and day I was by her side, but she never, for
a moment, seemed to recollect me: yet were there times of fierce and
overpowering delirium, when my name was uttered in the transport of
the most passionate enthusiasm--when my features as absent, though not
present, were recalled and dwelt upon with all the minuteness of the
most faithful detail; and I knelt by her in all those moments, when no
other human being was near, and clasped her wan hand, and wiped the dew
from her forehead, and gazed upon her convulsed and changing face, and
called upon her in a voice which could once have allayed her wildest
emotions; and had the agony of seeing her eye dwell upon me with the
most estranged indifference and the most vehement and fearful aversion.
But ever and anon, she uttered words which chilled the very marrow of
my bones; words which I would not, dared not believe, had any meaning or
method in their madness--but which entered into my own brain, and
preyed there like the devouring of a fire. There was a truth in those
ravings--a reason in that incoherence--and my cup was not yet full.
“At last, one physician, who appeared to me to have more knowledge than
the rest of the mysterious workings of her dreadful disease, advised me
to take her to the scenes of her first childhood: ‘Those scenes,’ said
he, justly, ‘are in all stages of life, the most fondly remembered; and
I have noted, that in many cases of insanity, places are easier recalled
than persons: perhaps, if we can once awaken one link in the chain, it
will communicate to the rest.’
“I took this advice, and set off to Norfolk. Her early home was not many
miles distant from the churchyard where you once met me, and in that
churchyard her mother was buried. She had died before Gertrude’s flight;
the father’s death had followed it: perhaps my sufferings were a
just retribution. The house had gone into other hands, and I had no
difficulty in engaging it. Thank Heaven, I was spared the pain of seeing
any of Gertrude’s relations.
“It was night when we moved to the house. I had placed within the room
where she used to sleep, all the furniture and books, with which it
appeared, from my inquiries, to have been formerly filled. We laid her
in the bed that had held that faded and altered form, in its freshest
and purest years. I shrouded myself in one corner of the room, and
counted the dull minutes till the daylight dawned. I pass over the
detail of my recital--the experiment partially succeeded--would to God
that it had not! would that she had gone down to her grave with her
dreadful secret unrevealed! would--but--”
Here Glanville’s voice failed him, and there was a brief silence before
he recommenced.
“Gertrude now had many lucid intervals; but these my presence were
always sufficient to change into a delirious raving, even more
incoherent than her insanity had ever yet been. She would fly from me
with the most fearful cries, bury her face in her hands, and seem like
one oppressed and haunted by a supernatural visitation, as long as I
remained in the room; the moment I left her, she began, though slowly,
to recover.
“This was to me the bitterest affliction of all--to be forbidden to
nurse, to cherish, to tend her, was like taking from me my last hope!
But little can the thoughtless or the worldly dream of the depths of a
real love; I used to wait all day by her door, and it was luxury enough
to me to catch her accents or hear her move, or sigh, or even weep; and
all night, when she could not know of my presence, I used to lie down by
her bedside; and when I sank into a short and convulsed sleep, I saw her
once more, in my brief and fleeting dreams, in all the devoted love, and
glowing beauty, which had once constituted the whole of my happiness,
and my world.
“One day I had been called from my post by her door. They came to me
hastily--she was in strong convulsions. I flew up stairs, and supported
her in my arms till the fits had ceased: we then placed her in bed; she
never rose from it again; but on that bed of death, the words, as well
as the cause, of her former insanity, were explained--the mystery was
unravelled.
“It was a still and breathless night. The moon, which was at its
decrease, came through the half-closed shutters, and beneath its solemn
and eternal light, she yielded to my entreaties, and revealed all. The
man--my friend--Tyrrell--had polluted her ear with his addresses, and
when forbidden the house, had bribed the woman I had left with her,
to convey his letters--she was discharged--but Tyrrell was no ordinary
villain; he entered the house one evening, when no one but Gertrude was
there--Come near me, Pelham--nearer--bend down your ear--he used force,
violence! That night Gertrude’s senses deserted her--you know the rest.
“The moment that I gathered, from Gertrude’s broken sentences, their
meaning, that moment the demon entered into my soul. All human feelings
seemed to fly from my heart; it shrunk into one burning, and thirsty,
and fiery want--that was for revenge. I would have sprung from the
bedside, but Gertrude’s hand clung to me, and detained me; the damp,
chill grasp, grew colder and colder--it ceased--the hand fell--I
turned--one slight, but awful shudder, went over that face, made yet
more wan, by the light of the waning and ghastly moon--one convulsion
shook the limbs--one murmur passed the falling and hueless lips. I
cannot tell you the rest--you know--you can guess it.
“That day week we buried her in the lonely churchyard--where she had, in
her lucid moments, wished to lie--by the side of her mother.”