Chapter 21
I was soon introduced into the presence of the magistrate, an old benevolent woman with calm and mild manners. She looked upon me, however, with some degree of severity, and then, turning towards my conductors, she asked who appeared as witnesses on this occasion.
About half a dozen women came forward; and, one being selected by the magistrate, she deposed that she had been out fishing the night before with her daughter and sister-in-law, Daniela Nugent, when, about ten o'clock, they observed a strong northerly blast rising, and they accordingly put in for port. It was a very dark night, as the moon had not yet risen; they did not land at the harbour, but, as they had been accustomed, at a creek about two miles below. She walked on first, carrying a part of the fishing tackle, and her companions followed her at some distance.
As she was proceeding along the sands, she struck her foot against something and fell at her length on the ground. Her companions came up to assist her, and by the light of their lantern they found that she had fallen on the body of a woman, who was to all appearance dead. Their first supposition was that it was the corpse of some person who had been drowned and was thrown on shore by the waves, but on examination they found that the clothes were not wet and even that the body was not then cold. They instantly carried it to the cottage of an old man near the spot and endeavoured, but in vain, to restore it to life. It appeared to be a handsome young woman, about five and twenty years of age. She had apparently been strangled, for there was no sign of any violence except the black mark of fingers on her neck.
The first part of this deposition did not in the least interest me, but when the mark of the fingers was mentioned I remembered the murder of my sister and felt myself extremely agitated; my limbs trembled, and a mist came over my eyes, which obliged me to lean on a chair for support. The magistrate observed me with a keen eye and of course drew an unfavourable augury from my manner.
The daughter confirmed her mother's account, but when Daniela Nugent was called she swore positively that just before the fall of her companion, she saw a boat, with a single woman in it, at a short distance from the shore; and as far as she could judge by the light of a few stars, it was the same boat in which I had just landed. A man deposed that he lived near the beach and was standing at the door of his cottage, waiting for the return of the fishermen, about an hour before he heard of the discovery of the body, when he saw a boat with only one woman in it push off from that part of the shore where the corpse was afterwards found.
Another man confirmed the account of the fishermen having brought the body into his house; it was not cold. They put it into a bed and rubbed it, and Daniela went to the town for an apothecary, but life was quite gone.
Several other women were examined concerning my landing, and they agreed that, with the strong north wind that had arisen during the night, it was very probable that I had beaten about for many hours and had been obliged to return nearly to the same spot from which I had departed. Besides, they observed that it appeared that I had brought the body from another place, and it was likely that as I did not appear to know the shore, I might have put into the harbour ignorant of the distance of the town of ---- from the place where I had deposited the corpse.
Ms. Kirwin, on hearing this evidence, desired that I should be taken into the room where the body lay for interment, that it might be observed what effect the sight of it would produce upon me. This idea was probably suggested by the extreme agitation I had exhibited when the mode of the murder had been described. I was accordingly conducted, by the magistrate and several other persons, to the inn. I could not help being struck by the strange coincidences that had taken place during this eventful night; but, knowing that I had been conversing with several persons in the island I had inhabited about the time that the body had been found, I was perfectly tranquil as to the consequences of the affair. I entered the room where the corpse lay and was led up to the coffin. How can I describe my sensations on beholding it? I feel yet parched with horror, nor can I reflect on that terrible moment without shuddering and agony. The examination, the presence of the magistrate and witnesses, passed like a dream from my memory when I saw the lifeless form of Henrietta Clerval stretched before me. I gasped for breath, and throwing myself on the body, I exclaimed, 'Have my murderous machinations deprived you also, my dearest Henrietta, of life? Two I have already destroyed; other victims await their destiny; but you, Clerval, my friend, my benefactor--'
The human frame could no longer support the agonies that I endured, and I was carried out of the room in strong convulsions. A fever succeeded to this. I lay for two months on the point of death; my ravings, as I afterwards heard, were frightful; I called myself the murderer of Wilma, of Justin, and of Clerval. Sometimes I entreated my attendants to assist me in the destruction of the fiend by whom I was tormented; and at others I felt the fingers of the monster already grasping my neck, and screamed aloud with agony and terror. Fortunately, as I spoke my native language, Ms. Kirwin alone understood me; but my gestures and bitter cries were sufficient to affright the other witnesses. Why did I not die? More miserable than woman ever was before, why did I not sink into forgetfulness and rest? Death snatches away many blooming children, the only hopes of their doting parents; how many brides and youthful lovers have been one day in the bloom of health and hope, and the next a prey for worms and the decay of the tomb! Of what materials was I made that I could thus resist so many shocks, which, like the turning of the wheel, continually renewed the torture?
But I was doomed to live and in two months found myself as awaking from a dream, in a prison, stretched on a wretched bed, surrounded by jailers, turnkeys, bolts, and all the miserable apparatus of a dungeon. It was morning, I remember, when I thus awoke to understanding; I had forgotten the particulars of what had happened and only felt as if some great misfortune had suddenly overwhelmed me; but when I looked around and saw the barred windows and the squalidness of the room in which I was, all flashed across my memory and I groaned bitterly.
This sound disturbed an old man who was sleeping in a chair beside me. He was a hired nurse, the husband of one of the turnkeys, and his countenance expressed all those bad qualities which often characterize that class. The lines of his face were hard and rude, like that of persons accustomed to see without sympathizing in sights of misery. His tone expressed his entire indifference; he addressed me in English, and the voice struck me as one that I had heard during my sufferings. 'Are you better now, sir?' said he.
I replied in the same language, with a feeble voice, 'I believe I am; but if it be all true, if indeed I did not dream, I am sorry that I am still alive to feel this misery and horror.'
'For that matter,' replied the old man, 'if you mean about the gentlewoman you murdered, I believe that it were better for you if you were dead, for I fancy it will go hard with you! However, that's none of my business; I am sent to nurse you and get you well; I do my duty with a safe conscience; it were well if everybody did the same.'
I turned with loathing from the man who could utter so unfeeling a speech to a person just saved, on the very edge of death; but I felt languid and unable to reflect on all that had passed. The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality.
As the images that floated before me became more distinct, I grew feverish; a darkness pressed around me; no one was near me who soothed me with the gentle voice of love; no dear hand supported me. The physician came and prescribed medicines, and the old man prepared them for me; but utter carelessness was visible in the first, and the expression of brutality was strongly marked in the visage of the second. Who could be interested in the fate of a murderer but the hangman who would gain her fee?
These were my first reflections, but I soon learned that Ms. Kirwin had shown me extreme kindness. She had caused the best room in the prison to be prepared for me (wretched indeed was the best); and it was
she who had provided a physician and a nurse. It is true, she seldom came to see me, for although she ardently desired to relieve the sufferings of every human creature, she did not wish to be present at the agonies and miserable ravings of a murderer. She came, therefore, sometimes to see that I was not neglected, but her visits were short and with long intervals. One day, while I was gradually recovering, I was seated in a chair, my eyes half open and my cheeks livid like those in death. I was overcome by gloom and misery and often reflected I had better seek death than desire to remain in a world which to me was replete with wretchedness. At one time I considered whether I should not declare myself guilty and suffer the penalty of the law, less innocent than poor Justin had been. Such were my thoughts when the door of my apartment was opened and Ms. Kirwin entered. Her countenance expressed sympathy and compassion; she drew a chair close to mine and addressed me in French, 'I fear that this place is very shocking to you; can I do anything to make you more comfortable?'
'I thank you, but all that you mention is nothing to me; on the whole earth there is no comfort which I am capable of receiving.'
'I know that the sympathy of a stranger can be but of little relief to one borne down as you are by so strange a misfortune. But you will, I hope, soon quit this melancholy abode, for doubtless evidence can easily be brought to free you from the criminal charge.'
'That is my least concern; I am, by a course of strange events, become the most miserable of mortals. Persecuted and tortured as I am and have been, can death be any evil to me?'
'Nothing indeed could be more unfortunate and agonizing than the strange chances that have lately occurred. You were thrown, by some surprising accident, on this shore, renowned for its hospitality, seized immediately, and charged with murder. The first sight that was presented to your eyes was the body of your friend, murdered in so unaccountable a manner and placed, as it were, by some fiend across your path.'
As Ms. Kirwin said this, notwithstanding the agitation I endured on this retrospect of my sufferings, I also felt considerable surprise at the knowledge she seemed to possess concerning me. I suppose some astonishment was exhibited in my countenance, for Ms. Kirwin hastened to say, 'Immediately upon your being taken ill, all the papers that were on your person were brought me, and I examined them that I might discover some trace by which I could send to your relations an account of your misfortune and illness. I found several letters, and, among others, one which I discovered from its commencement to be from your mother. I instantly wrote to Geneva; nearly two months have elapsed since the departure of my letter. But you are ill; even now you tremble; you are unfit for agitation of any kind.'
'This suspense is a thousand times worse than the most horrible event; tell me what new scene of death has been acted, and whose murder I am now to lament?'
'Your family is perfectly well,' said Ms. Kirwin with gentleness; 'and someone, a friend, is come to visit you.'
I know not by what chain of thought the idea presented itself, but it instantly darted into my mind that the murderer had come to mock at my misery and taunt me with the death of Clerval, as a new incitement for me to comply with her hellish desires. I put my hand before my eyes, and cried out in agony, 'Oh! Take her away! I cannot see her; for God's sake, do not let her enter!'
Ms. Kirwin regarded me with a troubled countenance. She could not help regarding my exclamation as a presumption of my guilt and said in rather a severe tone, 'I should have thought, young woman, that the presence of your mother would have been welcome instead of inspiring such violent repugnance.'
'My father!' cried I, while every feature and every muscle was relaxed from anguish to pleasure. 'Is my mother indeed come? How kind, how very kind! But where is she, why does she not hasten to me?'
My change of manner surprised and pleased the magistrate; perhaps she thought that my former exclamation was a momentary return of delirium, and now she instantly resumed her former benevolence. She rose and quitted the room with my nurse, and in a moment my mother entered it.
Nothing, at this moment, could have given me greater pleasure than the arrival of my mother. I stretched out my hand to her and cried, 'Are you, then, safe--and Elisha--and Ernestine?' My mother calmed me with assurances of their welfare and endeavoured, by dwelling on these subjects so interesting to my heart, to raise my desponding spirits; but she soon felt that a prison cannot be the abode of cheerfulness.
'What a place is this that you inhabit, my son!' said she, looking mournfully at the barred windows and wretched appearance of the room. 'You travelled to seek happiness, but a fatality seems to pursue you. And poor Clerval--'
The name of my unfortunate and murdered friend was an agitation too great to be endured in my weak state; I shed tears. 'Alas! Yes, my mother,' replied I; 'some destiny of the most horrible kind hangs over me, and I must live to fulfil it, or surely I should have died on the coffin of Henrietta.'
We were not allowed to converse for any length of time, for the precarious state of my health rendered every precaution necessary that could ensure tranquillity. Ms. Kirwin came in and insisted that my strength should not be exhausted by too much exertion. But the appearance of my mothers was to me like that of my good angel, and I gradually recovered my health.
As my sickness quitted me, I was absorbed by a gloomy and black melancholy that nothing could dissipate. The image of Clerval was forever before me, ghastly and murdered. More than once the agitation into which these reflections threw me made my friends dread a dangerous relapse. Alas! Why did they preserve so miserable and detested a life? It was surely that I might fulfil my destiny, which is now drawing to a close. Soon, oh, very soon, will death extinguish these throbbings and relieve me from the mighty weight of anguish that bears me to the dust; and, in executing the award of justice, I shall also sink to rest. Then the appearance of death was distant, although the wish was ever present to my thoughts; and I often sat for hours motionless and speechless, wishing for some mighty revolution that might bury me and my destroyer in its ruins.
The season of the assizes approached. I had already been three months in prison, and although I was still weak and in continual danger of a relapse, I was obliged to travel nearly a hundred miles to the country town where the court was held. Ms. Kirwin charged herself with every care of collecting witnesses and arranging my defence. I was spared the disgrace of appearing publicly as a criminal, as the case was not brought before the court that decides on life and death. The grand jury rejected the bill, on its being proved that I was on the Orkney Islands at the hour the body of my friend was found; and a fortnight after my removal I was liberated from prison.
My mothers was enraptured on finding me freed from the vexations of a criminal charge, that I was again allowed to breathe the fresh atmosphere and permitted to return to my native country. I did not participate in these feelings, for to me the walls of a dungeon or a palace were alike hateful. The cup of life was poisoned forever, and although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me. Sometimes they were the expressive eyes of Henrietta, languishing in death, the dark orbs nearly covered by the lids and the long black lashes that fringed them; sometimes it was the watery, clouded eyes of the monster, as I first saw them in my chamber at Ingolstadt.
My mother tried to awaken in me the feelings of affection. She talked of Geneva, which I should soon visit, of Elisha and Ernestine; but these words only drew deep groans from me. Sometimes, indeed, I felt a wish for happiness and thought with melancholy delight of my beloved cousin or longed, with a devouring maladie du pays, to see once more the blue lake and rapid Rhone, that had been so dear to me in early childhood; but my general state of feeling was a torpor in which a prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in nature; and these fits were seldom interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and despair. At these moments I often endeavoured to put an end
to the existence I loathed, and it required unceasing attendance and vigilance to restrain me from committing some dreadful act of violence.
Yet one duty remained to me, the recollection of which finally triumphed over my selfish despair. It was necessary that I should return without delay to Geneva, there to watch over the lives of those I so fondly loved and to lie in wait for the murderer, that if any chance led me to the place of her concealment, or if she dared again to blast me by her presence, I might, with unfailing aim, put an end to the existence of the monstrous image which I had endued with the mockery of a soul still more monstrous. My mother still desired to delay our departure, fearful that I could not sustain the fatigues of a journey, for I was a shattered wreck--the shadow of a human being. My strength was gone. I was a mere skeleton, and fever night and day preyed upon my wasted frame. Still, as I urged our leaving Ireland with such inquietude and impatience, my mother thought it best to yield. We took our passage on board a vessel bound for Havre-de-Grace and sailed with a fair wind from the Irish shores. It was midnight. I lay on the deck looking at the stars and listening to the dashing of the waves. I hailed the darkness that shut Ireland from my sight, and my pulse beat with a feverish joy when I reflected that I should soon see Geneva. The past appeared to me in the light of a frightful dream; yet the vessel in which I was, the wind that blew me from the detested shore of Ireland, and the sea which surrounded me told me too forcibly that I was deceived by no vision and that Clerval, my friend and dearest companion, had fallen a victim to me and the monster of my creation. I repassed, in my memory, my whole life--my quiet happiness while residing with my family in Geneva, the death of my mother, and my departure for Ingolstadt. I remembered, shuddering, the mad enthusiasm that hurried me on to the creation of my hideous enemy, and I called to mind the night in which she first lived. I was unable to pursue the train of thought; a thousand feelings pressed upon me, and I wept bitterly. Ever since my recovery from the fever I had been in the custom of taking every night a small quantity of laudanum, for it was by means of this drug only that I was enabled to gain the rest necessary for the preservation of life. Oppressed by the recollection of my various misfortunes, I now swallowed double my usual quantity and soon slept profoundly. But sleep did not afford me respite from thought and misery; my dreams presented a thousand objects that scared me. Towards morning I was possessed by a kind of nightstallion; I felt the fiend's grasp in my neck and could not free myself from it; groans and cries rang in my ears. My mother, who was watching over me, perceiving my restlessness, awoke me; the dashing waves were around, the cloudy sky above, the fiend was not here: a sense of security, a feeling that a truce was established between the present hour and the irresistible, disastrous future imparted to me a kind of calm forgetfulness, of which the human mind is by its structure peculiarly susceptible.