CHAPTER II.
"You are once more a free woman;
Here I discharge your bonds."
/The Custom of the Country/.
AND many were thy trials, poor child; many that, were this book to
germinate into volumes more numerous than monk ever composed upon the
lives of saint or martyr (though a hundred volumes contained the record
of two years only in the life of St. Anthony), it would be impossible to
describe! We may talk of the fidelity of books, but no man ever wrote
even his own biography without being compelled to omit at least
nine-tenths of the most important materials. What are three--what six
volumes? We live six volumes in a day! Thought, emotion, joy, sorrow,
hope, fear, how prolix would they be if they might each tell their
hourly tale! But man's life itself is a brief epitome of that which is
infinite and everlasting; and his most accurate confessions are a
miserable abridgment of a hurried and confused compendium!
It was about three months, or more, from the night in which Alice wept
herself to sleep amongst those wild companions, when she contrived to
escape from her father's vigilant eye. They were then on the coast of
Ireland. Darvil had separated himself from Walters--from his seafaring
companions: he had run through the greater part of the money his crimes
had got together; he began seriously to attempt putting into execution
his horrible design of depending for support upon the sale of his
daughter. Now Alice might have been moulded into sinful purposes before
she knew Maltravers; but from that hour her very error made her
virtuous--she had comprehended, the moment she loved, what was meant by
female honour; and by a sudden revelation, she had purchased modesty,
delicacy of thought and soul, in the sacrifice of herself. Much of our
morality (prudent and right upon system) with respect to the first false
step of women, leads us, as we all know, into barbarous errors as to
individual exceptions. Where, from pure and confiding love, that first
false step has been taken, many a woman has been saved in after life
from a thousand temptations. The poor unfortunates who crowd our
streets and theatres have rarely, in the first instances, been corrupted
by love; but by poverty, and the contagion of circumstance and example.
It is a miserable cant phrase to call them the victims of seduction;
they have been the victims of hunger, of vanity, of curiosity, of evil
/female/ counsels; but the seduction of love hardly ever conducts to a
/life/ of vice. If a woman has once really loved, the beloved object
makes an impenetrable barrier between her and other men; their advances
terrify and revolt--she would rather die than be unfaithful even to a
memory. Though man love the sex, woman loves only the individual; and
the more she loves him, the more cold she is to the species. For the
passion of woman is in the sentiment--the fancy--the heart. It rarely
has much to do with the coarse images with which boys and old men--the
inexperienced and the worn-out--connect it.
But Alice, though her blood ran cold at her terrible father's language,
saw in his very design the prospect of escape. In an hour of
drunkenness he thrust her from the house, and stationed himself to watch
her--it was in the city of Cork. She formed her resolution
instantly--turned up a narrow street, and fled at full speed. Darvil
endeavoured in vain to keep pace with her--his eyes dizzy, his steps
reeling with intoxication. She heard his last curse dying from a
distance on the air, and her fear winged her steps: she paused at last,
and found herself on the outskirts of the town. She paused, overcome,
and deadly faint; and then, for the first time, she felt that a strange
and new life was stirring within her own. She had long since known that
she bore in her womb the unborn offspring of Maltravers, and that
knowledge had made her struggle and live on. But now, the embryo had
quickened into being--it moved--it appealed to her, a--thing unseen,
unknown; but still it was a living creature appealing to a mother! Oh,
the thrill, half of ineffable tenderness, half of mysterious terror, at
that moment!--What a new chapter in the life of a woman did it not
announce:--Now, then, she must be watchful over herself--must guard
against fatigue--must wrestle with despair. Solemn was the trust
committed to her--the life of another--the child of the Adored. It was
a summer night--she sat on a rude stone, the city on one side, with its
lights and lamps;--the whitened fields beyond, with the moon and the
stars above; and /above/ she raised her streaming eyes, and she thought
that God, the Protector, smiled upon her from the face of the sweet
skies. So, after a pause and a silent prayer, she rose and resumed her
way. When she was wearied she crept into a shed in a farmyard, and
slept, for the first time for weeks, the calm sleep of security and
hope.
