Falkner: a Novel
Copyright© 2025 by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
Chapter 16
Lady Cecil began:—
“I have already told you, that though I call Gerard my brother, and he possesses my sisterly affection, we are only connexions by marriage, and not the least related in blood. His father married my mother; but Gerard is the offspring of a former marriage, as I am also. Sir Boyvill’s first wife is the unfortunate lady who is the heroine of my tale.
“Sir Boyvill, then Mr. Neville, for he inherited his baronetcy only a few years ago, had advanced beyond middle age when he first married. He was a man of the world, and of pleasure; and being also clever, handsome, and rich, had great success in the circles of fashion. He was often involved in liaisons with ladies, whose names were rife among the last generation for loving notoriety and amusement better than duty and honour. As he made a considerable figure, he conceived that he had a right to entertain a high opinion of himself, and not without some foundation; his good sayings were repeated; his songs were set to music, and sung with enthusiasm in his own set—he was courted and feared. Favoured by women, imitated by men, he reached the zenith of a system, any connexion with which is considered as enviable.
“He was some five-and-forty when he fell in love, and married. Like many dissipated men, he had a mean idea of female virtue—and especially disbelieved that any portion of it was to be found in London; so he married a country girl, without fortune, but with beauty and attractions sufficient to justify his choice. I never saw his lady; but several of her early friends have described her to me. She was something like Gerard—yet how unlike! In the colour of the eyes and hair, and the formation of the features, they resembled; but the expression was wholly different. Her clear complexion was tinged by a pure blood, that ebbed and flowed rapidly in her veins, driven by the pulsations of her soul, rather than of her body. Her large dark eyes were irresistibly brilliant; and opened their lids on the spectator with an effect such as the sun has, when it drops majestically below a heavy cloud, and dazzles the beholder with its unexpected beams. She was vivacious—nay, wild of spirit; but though raised far above the dull monotony of common life by her exuberant joyousness of soul, yet every thought and act was ruled by a pure unsullied heart. Her impulses were keen and imperative; her sensibility, true to the touch of nature, was tremblingly alive; but their more dangerous tendencies were guarded by excellent principles, and a truth never shadowed by a cloud. Her generous and confiding heart might be duped—might spring forward too eagerly—and she might be imprudent; but she was never false. An ingenuous confession of error, if ever she fell into it, purged away all suspicion that anything mysterious or forbidden lurked in her most thoughtless acts. Other women, who, like her, are keenly sensitive, and who are driven by ungovernable spirits to do what they afterward repent, and are endowed, as she was, with an aptitude to shame when rebuked, guard their dignity or their fears by falsehood; and while their conduct is essentially innocent, immesh themselves in such a web of deceit, as not only renders them absolutely criminal in the eyes of those who detect them, but in the end hardens and perverts their better nature. Alithea Neville never sheltered herself from the consequences of her faults; rather she met them too eagerly, acknowledged a venial error with too much contrition, and never rested till she had laid her heart bare to her friend and judge, and vindicated its every impulse. To this admirable frankness, soft tenderness, and heart-cheering gayety was added a great store of common sense. Her fault, if fault it could be called, was a too earnest craving for the sympathy and affection of those she loved; to obtain this, she was unwearied, nay, prodigal, in her endeavours to please and serve. Her generosity was a ready prompter, while her sensibility enlightened her. She sought love, and not applause; and she obtained both from all who knew her. To sum up all with the mention of a defect—though she could feel the dignity which an adherence to the dictates of duty imparts, yet sometimes going wrong—sometimes wounded by censure, and always keenly alive to blame, she had a good deal of timidity in her character. She was so susceptible to pain, that she feared it too much, too agonizingly; and this terror of meeting anything harsh or grating in her path rendered her too diffident of herself—too submissive to authority—too miserable, and too yielding, when anything disturbed the harmony with which she desired to be surrounded.
“It was these last qualities, probably, that led her to accept Mr. Neville’s offer. Her father wished it, and she obeyed. He was a retired lieutenant in the navy. Sir Boyvill got him raised to the rank of post captain; and what naval officer but would feel unbounded gratitude for such a favour! He was appointed to a ship—sailed—and fell in an engagement not many months after his daughter’s marriage—grateful, even in his last moments, that he died commanding the deck of a man-of-war. Meanwhile his daughter bore the effects of his promotion in a less gratifying way. Yet, at first, she loved and esteemed her husband. He was not then what he is now. He was handsome; and his good breeding had the polish of the day. He was popular, through a sort of liveliness which passes for wit, though it was rather a conventional ease in conversation than the sparkle of real intellect. Besides, he loved her to idolatry. Whatever he is now, still vehemence of passion forms his characteristic; and though the selfishness of his disposition gave an evil bias even to his love, yet it was there, and for a time it shed its delusions over his real character. While her artless and sweet caresses could create smiles—while he played the slave at her feet, or folded her in his arms with genuine and undisguised transport, even his darker nature was adorned by the, to him, alien and transitory magic of love.
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