Delphi Complete Works of William Godwin 1st ed. (2022), page 294
part #1 of Delphi Classics Series
I asked myself, What means this paper? and by what accident or contrivance has it thus thrust itself on my notice? These questions remained for ever unanswered. The justice of heaven only must be accountable for the event. It could not have occurred through the instrumentality of Jerome. If he had seen the paper, if he had regarded it with a serious eye, if he had applied its contents to me, – though full surely he could have no cause to regard Deloraine as my name, – he would rather have secreted it from me, and have ruminated upon its contents in the solitude of his own contemplations. – It was thus that I reasoned.
Though this however appeared to me the just inference from the phenomenon, I did not the less intently observe the motions and gestures of my host, that I might infer from them, if possible, what was silently working in his mind. It was all impenetrable. The brown and leathery texture of his skin, the stern inflexibleness of his eye, the bushy shagginess of his brow, and the invariable steadiness of his spirit, set at defiance every power of conjecture. Meanwhile, if there were any change in his demeanour, it was certainly on the favourable side. No doubt all his behaviour in the recent visit of Travers and his myrmidons was calculated to inspire me with confidence. His conduct throughout had been apparently frank and single-minded. He had given me notice of the approach of my foe; and all that he did was steady, resolute and unflinching. His subsequent proceeding was marked with a greater cordiality than before. It seemed to say, By this time we understand each other; and you must see that you have reason to rely on my constancy.
After much deliberation I shewed the paper that had fallen into my hands to Catherine. At first I seemed to feel some terror from the cunningness of its insinuations. But I said, No: surely my daughter knows me sufficiently; and I am myself at hand to clear all ambiguities. I was also originally unwilling to add new anguish to all that she already sustained on my account. But I presently saw the fallacy of these reasonings. The more she had sacrificed for my sake, the more unquestionably was she entitled that I should have no reserves with her. Beside that, I relied much upon the sagacity of her penetration. Innocence always has an advantage in that respect. Its eye is more steady, and its inferences more sound and dispassionate, than those of one whose perceptions are disturbed by conscious guilt.
Catherine however was greatly disquieted with the perusal. She could not but be annoyed with the colours here put upon the conduct of her father. She had never regarded the deplorable violence that I had committed from the same point of view that I had regarded it. She had believed in the faultlessness and purity of her mother-in-law. She imputed no unprincipled profligacy to the unhappy stranger. She believed that all the provocation I saw, had been mere misconstruction on my part, an unhappy concurrence of circumstances which had supplied food for suspicion and jealousy, and had so rendered me desperate. She had not followed me, and devoted herself for my sake, because she considered me as ‘a man more sinned against, than sinning’. On the contrary it was the gross error I had committed, the very enormity and unpardonableness of my guilt, that had attached her to me, and made her feel that it was impossible for her to desert me in my complicated distress. But she could not bear to see all this set down in black and white. And least of all could she bear to see it maliciously aggravated, the worst construction put upon every thing, and views imputed to me the most foreign to my disposition and character.
And, in addition to all this, the paper gave her fresh uneasiness and impatience respecting our situation. She could not conjecture how it had found its way into our remote situation; but neither could she credit that it had not been seen by Jerome. Then the reward for my apprehension that it specified, was the very thing that, judging from the adventure of M. Brissac, was the most precisely calculated to seduce him. All her remaining serenity was dissipated under this apprehension. Day and night was she haunted with ten thousand nameless fears.
Catherine now pressed me anew to dislodge, and to seek another shelter. But I obstinately resisted her expostulations. I observed that, If I had previously conceived a confidence in Jerome, a confidence fully justified by the event, I was authorised in entertaining a still ampler confidence by what had recently occurred. We had found by actual experiment how felicitously the castle was adapted for secrecy, we had found Travers and all his myrmidons baffled. He had visited the castle, and by the fidelity of Jerome had been sent away, bootless as he came.
We accordingly still continued for one week and another without molestation. We fell into our usual occupations; and I could even perceive that Catherine, though still haunted with qualms and apprehensions, yet from day to day recovered a greater serenity.
In the course of the second week I was seized with an inflammatory distemper, which for two days confined me to my bed. By the application of proper medicines however I recovered more rapidly than might have been expected. On the third day the weather for several hours had been insufferably hot, which in the afternoon was succeeded by a sober, heavy, perpendicular rain, giving a freshness to every surrounding object, and a remarkably exhilarating sweetness to the air. The evening after the rain was particularly beautiful, and irresistibly invited me to partake of its genial influence. The declivity of the rock caused the rain to run off immediately, so as to enable me to partake of the invigorating qualities of the shower without being exposed to any of its inconveniencies. Catherine however was that evening detained within the castle, about some trivial task which she was uncommonly earnest to finish. For my part I for the moment felt a gratification in being alone. A pleasing languor, the effect of my fever, the fever itself having vanished, hung about me; and I experienced that freshness of sensation, to which robust health is a stranger, and which comes over one like the inspiration of heaven, after a fit of sickness.
CHAPTER XIII
I OPENED THE small door broken in the wall which I formerly mentioned, and stepped out upon the rugged and irregular ground which forms the descent of the rock. I viewed the parting splendours of the closing day, already more than half extinct, and which every moment yielded a further step to the ashy tint of evening. A life-giving breeze played upon my cheek and my forehead. Presently the evening-star came, to assert its prerogative as precursor of the host of heaven. At that moment all grief, all sorrow, all remorse and reproach of things past, seemed to pass away from me. I was like a new-born child, conscious only of internal sensation, swallowed up in the calm abstraction of existence. This did not last more than a quarter of an hour. But it was like a solitary green island, firm and immovable under the foot of the stranger, in the midst of the never-reposing waves of a tumultuous sea. I gave myself up to it; and it seemed an earnest of everlasting existence.
When I woke from this delicious reverie, I found that I was still almost under the walls of the castle. I had perhaps neither moved hand nor foot from its commencement to its close. I had previously proceeded in an oblique direction, and now perceived that I was rather under the northern than the eastern aspect of the castle. I applied myself to regain the door by which I had left its walls. In attempting to accomplish this I made a small circuit of a part of the fortification. It was now almost totally dark; and every thing was as still as death. The ground I trod was of pulverised earth, and my steps were soundless.
I approached a buttress; and, as I approached, could hear the sound of human voices on the other side. I paused for a moment from an impulse of curiosity, and thinking whether the subject of their talk could possibly have reference to me. They conversed in somewhat of an under-key, as men almost always do when their talk is in the nature of conspiracy, even though there should be not the smallest probability of their being overheard. The buttress however was a convenient screen for me, enabling me to advance almost close to the speakers without the risk of being perceived. The evening was remarkably still; so that scarcely a syllable could be uttered by either, without its being conveyed to my ear.
I would not, said Jerome, have thought of a thing of the sort, if it had not been for that paper. But I never heard of any thing so cold-blooded and atrocious as this man; and I shall feel that I have done a meritorious act by ridding the earth I tread, of such a villain. There can be no mistake of this being the very man?
I am sure of it, replied the other. I came from England for the very purpose of apprehending him. But, if not, there is no harm done. I want Deloraine, and him only. I bear no animosity against any other living mortal. If I find that this is not Deloraine, I will not hurt a hair of his head.
I should be mainly sorry to be wrong. I stand upon my character, and would not but be faithful to the very letter of my engagement, to any thing that deserved the name of a man.
But where is he? He is harboured in this very castle?
I will not tell you where he is. He is not far distant; and I can presently put him into your hands. But, without my aid and consent, you can never meet with him. He is as safe, as if he were hid in the bottom of the sea. But you are sure the reward is twelve thousand livres? I could not take a farthing less.
You may depend upon it. Give yourself no uneasiness. But lead me to him. Do not trifle time.
Soft you, sir. Where is the cash? I must see it. You must count it out to me. I depend upon no promises. I have nothing to do with paper. Gold, and gold only, can make me stir a step.
You shall have it tomorrow. But in the mean time let us secure his person. I count every minute an age, till I have him in my hands.
Excuse me; but you shall have no performance to-day, to be paid for tomorrow. What do I know of you, Mr Travers, or whatever may be your name? You may be as much to be relied on as the bank of Amsterdam, or you may be a man of air, to be puffed away with a breath. No, sir; I am not to be had so.
Well then, said Travers. I will go to the nearest free-town. It is but a few miles. I will be with you by ten tomorrow. But in the mean time, if the criminal should escape?
Be under no concern about that. I am an old bird; and not to be caught with chaff.
Farewell then: remember ten.
At ten I am yours. The dial is not so sure to the sun, as I am to be on the spot, and in all readiness.
Saying thus, they parted; and I was left in silence and solitude.
What were my feelings in having overheard this conversation? My blood tingled: every atom and fibre within me had a life of its own. Here I stood on the brink of destruction. All my precautions, all my anxieties were dissolved, like ‘a thread of tow, when it touches the fire’. I felt already as if the iron, which dispassionate and ice-blooded policy has hammered out, had embraced my ancles and my wrists. I did not so properly anticipate, as pass through, my apprehension, my being embarked for England, thrust into a post-chaise between two thief-takers, and delivered up to the jailor, the bars of my dungeon, the dock of the session-house, and all the dreadful formalities which are concluded with the scaffold and the gallows. By how rare an accident had I sallied out alone at the small and obscure door of the castle, and approached the buttress at the very moment to hear what I had heard! And, but immediately before, I had rocked myself in the most unsuspecting security, a security which is perhaps always the precursor of the hurricane and the earthquake.
I re-entered the castle by the door by which I had quitted it. Is it not strange? – Here dwelt the Judas, that had sworn to deliver me up to assured destruction, and I placed myself consciously, and with my eyes open, within his walls. What could I do? I could not fly wholly unprepared and naked. I could not leave my vowed and devoted companion, my daughter, to encounter a host of traitorous foes, in utter ignorance of what was become of her father. What would be her feelings? I could not bear to anticipate them. Least of all could I bear, of deliberate purpose, and by voluntary election, to cast upon her such a consummation of her generous and disinterested labours. Where, if I left her now, was I to find her again? How communicate to her the intelligence which most of all she valued, What was become of her father? her worthless father, the pest of the earth, the blight and the curse of her invaluable existence?
I entered the apartment, where sat Catherine, having just completed the task she had prescribed herself. She looked up, and saw immediately the tokens of the extraordinary revolution that had passed within me. I said:
Catherine, there is but a step between me and death. Travers was this moment at the castle. Jerome has agreed to give me up. All that you suspected, all that you feared, is realised.
I told her every thing I had heard, that Travers had gone, to be here again at ten in the morning with the promised reward, and doubtless with such a reinforcement as to make my escape impossible. Knowing this, I had returned into the lion’s den, and placed myself within his fangs, rather than subject my child to all she would have felt at the disappearance of her father, and not knowing what had become of him.
Catherine was cruelly shocked at the intelligence I brought her. The effect however was somewhat diminished to her by the circumstance of her being always suspicious and on the alert, anticipating what had now actually happened. Add to which, her sportless soul and her well-balanced mind gave her at all times unspeakably the advantage of me. We felt at once that it was necessary for us to conduct ourselves just in our usual manner, and not to take the slightest step, till Jerome had retired to rest, and we had reason to conclude him already in the arms of sleep. We counted the clock; we watched the minute-hand; and we said, So many hours, and quarters of an hour, and our oppressors will be upon us. We might have retired into our hiding-place, and have shot the bolt; but Jerome knew every nook and recess of the castle, and all our precautions would have been unavailing.
We had nothing for it but to get out of the chateau by the same passage by which I had just entered it, and which was used by no one but ourselves. It fortunately happened, as I have already said, that the apartments of the concierge were detached, and at a distance from those we occupied. He came to us before he retired to rest, said he was glad to see I was better of my fever, and wished us a good-night. As he shut the door after him, I heard a slight sound, which could scarcely be that of a bolt. I dared not try the door immediately; and the impression was so inconsiderable, that the minute after I had forgotten it.
After a brief pause, we put together a few necessaries, and the little provision of money we had by us. We waited more than an hour and a half till the dead of the night. I then went to the door of our apartment leading into the hall, and was petrified at finding that it was locked on the outside. I now for the first time recollected the brief and uncertain sound that had immediately succeeded Jerome’s departure.
Here then, at least as our jailor believed, we were secured, shut up as in a pen, or like wild beasts in a cage, helpless and without resource, till it should please him to open our place of confinement, and deliver me up at once into the hands of my destroyers.
Meanwhile, after a short interval of amazement and despair, I began to cast about what was to be done. I had still a respite of some hours, of which, in time at least, if not in space, I was absolute master, and during which no one would contravene me, or endeavour to interfere with my movements.
I had had the apprehension of my fate at all times before me, and had provided myself with the little implements that might be necessary to free me from obstacles not exactly to be calculated on. Among them were several of the tools of a carpenter. With these I applied myself to the lock of the door. It was strong, and of considerable dimensions; and the years which had passed since it was placed there, and the rust it had contracted, rendered its removal an affair of considerable difficulty. After repeated exertions however, and being more than once obliged to pause in my labour, I conquered the obstacle, detached the lock from the wood-work of the door, and having forced it from its horizontal position, no longer found any impediment to my reaching the steps that descended into the hall. The distance interposed between the spot where I had been at work, and the apartment of my jailor was a most fortunate circumstance. With cautious and wary steps we went down into the hall. All was perfectly still. We had hitherto been lucky enough to occasion no alarm.
After a minute’s pause we proceeded to the small door broken into the wall, which once passed we should find ourselves beneath the canopy of heaven. I had brought with me a little lamp to direct my steps. I had taken the precaution to close again the passage leading into my apartment. The outer door was just as I had always found it, secured with two light bolts. They were easily pushed back. We went forth, and found the air of heaven breathing upon us. This was in truth the having carried a great point, and the feeling of the breeze was for the moment the presage and assurance of freedom and a security from harm.
CHAPTER XIV
