Chapter 43

The varied train of hopes and fears which belonged to the situation of the prisoner and his faithful young companion, stood for some time suspended. In some sort, they might be said neither to hope nor fear; for, reasoning calmly, they neither expected that the worst would befall; and the actual and impending evil was certain. Like shipwrecked sailors, who have betaken themselves to a boat, and are tossed upon a tempestuous sea, they saw a ship nearing; they believed that their signal was seen, and that it was bearing down towards them. What if, with sudden tack, the disdainful vessel should turn its prow aside, and leave them to the mercy of the waves. They did not anticipate such a completion to their disasters.

Yet, as time passed, new anxieties occurred. Falkner’s solicitor, Mr. Colville, had despatched an agent to America to bring Osborne over. The pardon promised ensured his coming; and yet it was impossible not to feel inquietude with regard to his arrival. Falkner experienced least of this. He felt sure of Osborne, his creature; the being whose life he had heretofore saved, whose fortunes he had created. He knew his weakness, and how easily he was dealt with. The mere people of business were not so secure. Osborne enjoyed a comfortable existence, far from danger—why should he come over to place himself in a disgraceful situation, to be branded as a pardoned felon? In a thousand ways he might evade the summons. Perhaps there was nothing to prove that the Osborne whom Hoskins named was the Osborne who had been employed by Falkner, and was deemed an accessory in Mrs. Neville’s death.

Hillary, who had been sent, to Washington in September, had written immediately on his arrival. His passage had been tedious, as autumnal voyages to America usually are; he did not arrive till the last day of October; he announced that Osborne was in the town, and that on the morrow he should see him. This letter had arrived towards the end of November, and there was no reason wherefore Hillary and Osborne should not quickly follow it. But November passed away, and December had begun, and still the voyagers did not arrive; the southwest wind continued to reign with slight variation; except that as winter advanced it became more violent: packets perpetually arrived in Liverpool from America, after passages of seventeen and twenty days; but Hillary did not return, nor did he write.

The woods were despoiled of their leaves; but still the air was warm and pleasant; and it cheered Elizabeth, as favourable to her hopes: the sun shown at intervals, and the misty mornings were replaced by cheerful days. Elizabeth rode out each morning, and this one day, the sixteenth of December, she found a new pleasure in her solitary exercise. The weather was calm and cheerful; a brisk canter gave speed to the current of her blood; and her thoughts, though busy, had a charm in them that she was half angry with herself for feeling, but which glowed all warm and bright, despite every effort. On the preceding evening she had observed on her return home at nine o’clock from the prison, the figure of a man, which passed her hastily, and then stood aloof, as if guarding and watching her at a distance. Once, as he stood under an archway, a flickering lamp threw his shadow across her path. It was a bright moonlight night, and as he stood in the midst of an open space, near which her house was situated, she recognised, muffled as he was, the form of Gerard Neville. No wonder, then, that her heart was lightened of its burden; he had not forgotten her—he could no longer command himself to absence; if he might not converse with her, at least he might look upon her as she passed.

On the same morning she entered her father’s prison-room—she found two visiters already there, Colville and his agent, Hillary. The faces of both were long and serious. Elizabeth turned anxiously to Falkner, who looked stern and disdainful. He smiled when he saw her, and said, “You must not be shocked, my love, at the news which these gentlemen bring. I cannot tell how far it influences my fate; but it is impossible to believe that it is irrevocably sealed by it. But who can express the scorn that a man must feel, to know that so abject a poltron wears the human form. Osborne refuses to come.”