The Invisible Girl by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (the reading strategies book txt) 📕

it, but no vestige of an inhabitant met his eye, and he began to

persuade himself that the beacon had been a creation of fancy merely.

Arriving at the cottage in question, which was inhabited by a fisherman

and his family, they made an homely breakfast, and then prepared to

return to the tower, to refit their boat, and if possible bring her

round. Vernon accompanied them, together with their host and his son.

Several questions were asked concerning the Invisible Girl and her

light, each agreeing that the apparition was novel, and not one being

able to give even an explanation of how the name had become affixed to

the unknown cause of this singular appearance; though both of the men of

the cottage affirmed that once or twice they had seen a female figure in

the adjacent wood, and that now and then a stranger girl made her

appearance at another cot a mile off, on the other side of the

promontory, and bought bread; they suspected both these to be the same,

but could not tell. The inhabitants of the cot, indeed, appeared too

stupid even to feel curiosity, and had never made any attempt at

discovery. The whole day was spent by the sailors in repairing the boat;

and the sound of hammers, and the voices of the men at work, resounded

along the coast, mingled with the dashing of the waves. This was no time

to explore the ruin for one who whether human or supernatural so

evidently withdrew herself from intercourse with every living being.

Vernon, however, went over the tower, and searched every nook in vain;

the dingy bare walls bore no token of serving as a shelter; and even a

little recess in the wall of the staircase, which he had not before

observed, was equally empty and desolate.

Quitting the tower, he wandered in the pine wood that surrounded it, and

giving up all thought of solving the mystery, was soon engrossed by

thoughts that touched his heart more nearly, when suddenly there

appeared on the ground at his feet the vision of a slipper. Since

Cinderella so tiny a slipper had never been seen; as plain as shoe could

speak, it told a tale of elegance, loveliness, and youth. Vernon picked

it up; he had often admired Rosina’s singularly small foot, and his

first thought was a question whether this little slipper would have

fitted it. It was very strange!—it must belong to the Invisible Girl.

Then there was a fairy form that kindled that light, a form of such

material substance, that its foot needed to be shod; and yet how

shod?—with kid so fine, and of shape so exquisite, that it exactly

resembled such as Rosina wore! Again the recurrence of the image of the

beloved dead came forcibly across him; and a thousand home-felt

associations, childish yet sweet, and lover-like though trifling, so

filled Vernon’s heart, that he threw himself his length on the ground,

and wept more bitterly than ever the miserable fate of the sweet orphan.

In the evening the men quitted their work, and Vernon returned with them

to the cot where they were to sleep, intending to pursue their voyage,

weather permitting, the following morning.

Vernon said nothing of his slipper, but returned with his rough

associates. Often he looked back; but the tower rose darkly over the dim

waves, and no light appeared. Preparations had been made in the cot for

their accommodation, and the only bed in it was offered Vernon; but he

refused to deprive his hostess, and spreading his cloak on a heap of dry

leaves, endeavoured to give himself up to repose. He slept for some

hours; and when he awoke, all was still, save that the hard breathing of

the sleepers in the same room with him interrupted the silence. He rose,

and going to the window,—looked out over the now placid sea towards the

mystic tower; the light burning there, sending its slender rays across

the waves. Congratulating himself on a circumstance he had not

anticipated, Vernon softly left the cottage, and, wrapping his cloak

round him, walked with a swift pace round the bay towards the tower. He

reached it; still the light was burning. To enter and restore the maiden

her shoe, would be but an act of courtesy; and Vernon intended to do

this with such caution, as to come unaware, before its wearer could,

with her accustomed arts, withdraw herself from his eyes; but,

unluckily, while yet making his way up the narrow pathway, his foot

dislodged a loose fragment, that fell with crash and sound down the

precipice. He sprung forward, on this, to retrieve by speed the

advantage he had lost by this unlucky accident. He reached the door; he

entered: all was silent, but also all was dark. He paused in the room

below; he felt sure that a slight sound met his ear. He ascended the

steps, and entered the upper chamber; but blank obscurity met his

penetrating gaze, the starless night admitted not even a twilight

glimmer through the only aperture. He closed his eyes, to try, on

opening them again, to be able to catch some faint, wandering ray on the

visual nerve; but it was in vain. He groped round the room: he stood

still, and held his breath; and then, listening intently, he felt sure

that another occupied the chamber with him, and that its atmosphere was

slightly agitated by another’s respiration. He remembered the recess in

the staircase; but, before he approached it, he spoke:—he hesitated a

moment what to say. “I must believe,” he said, “that misfortune alone

can cause your seclusion; and if the assistance of a man—of a

gentleman—”

An exclamation interrupted him; a voice from the grave spoke his

name—the accents of Rosina syllabled, “Henry!—is it indeed Henry whom

I hear?”

He rushed forward, directed by the sound, and clasped in his arms the

living form of his own lamented girl—his own Invisible Girl he called

her; for even yet, as he felt her heart beat near his, and as he

entwined her waist with his arm, supporting her as she almost sank to

the ground with agitation, he could not see her; and, as her sobs

prevented her speech, no sense, but the instinctive one that filled his

heart with tumultuous gladness, told him that the slender, wasted form

he pressed so fondly was the living shadow of the Hebe beauty he had

adored.

The morning saw this pair thus strangely restored to each other on the

tranquil sea, sailing with a fair wind for L—, whence they were to

proceed to Sir Peter’s seat, which, three months before, Rosina had

quitted in such agony and terror. The morning light dispelled the

shadows that had veiled her, and disclosed the fair person of the

Invisible Girl. Altered indeed she was by suffering and woe, but still

the same sweet smile played on her lips, and the tender light of her

soft blue eyes were all her own. Vernon drew out the slipper, and showed

the cause that had occasioned him to resolve to discover the guardian of

the mystic beacon; even now he dared not inquire how she had existed in

that desolate spot, or wherefore she had so sedulously avoided

observation, when the right thing to have been done was, to have sought

him immediately, under whose care, protected by whose love, no danger

need be feared. But Rosina shrunk from him as he spoke, and a death-like

pallor came over her cheek, as she faintly whispered, “Your father’s

curse—your father’s dreadful threats!” It appeared, indeed, that Sir

Peter’s violence, and the cruelty of Mrs. Bainbridge, had succeeded in

impressing Rosina with wild and unvanquishable terror. She had fled from

their house without plan or forethought—driven by frantic horror and

overwhelming fear, she had left it with scarcely any money, and there

seemed to her no possibility of either returning or proceeding onward.

She had no friend except Henry in the wide world; whither could she

go?—to have sought Henry would have sealed their fates to misery; for,

with an oath, Sir Peter had declared he would rather see them both in

their coffins than married. After wandering about, hiding by day, and

only venturing forth at night, she had come to this deserted tower,

which seemed a place of refuge. I low she had lived since then she could

hardly tell;—she had lingered in the woods by day, or slept in the

vault of the tower, an asylum none were acquainted with or had

discovered: by night she burned the pine-cones of the wood, and night

was her dearest time; for it seemed to her as if security came with

darkness. She was unaware that Sir Peter had left that part of the

country, and was terrified lest her hiding-place should be revealed to

him. Her only hope was that Henry would return—that Henry would never

rest till he had found her. She confessed that the long interval and the

approach of winter had visited her with dismay; she feared that, as her

strength was failing, and her form wasting to a skeleton, that she might

die, and never see her own Henry more.

An illness, indeed, in spite of all his care, followed her restoration

to security and the comforts of civilized life; many months went by

before the bloom revisiting her cheeks, and her limbs regaining their

roundness, she resembled once more the picture drawn of her in her days

of bliss, before any visitation of sorrow. It was a copy of this

portrait that decorated the tower, the scene of her suffering, in which

I had found shelter. Sir Peter, overjoyed to be relieved from the pangs

of remorse, and delighted again to see his orphan-ward, whom he really

loved, was now as eager as before he had been averse to bless her union

with his son: Mrs. Bainbridge they never saw again. But each year they

spent a few months in their Welch mansion, the scene of their early

wedded happiness, and the spot where again poor Rosina had awoke to life

and joy after her cruel persecutions. Henry’s fond care had fitted up

the tower, and decorated it as I saw; and often did he come over, with

his “Invisible Girl,” to renew, in the very scene of its occurrence, the

remembrance of all the incidents which had led to their meeting again,

during the shades of night, in that sequestered ruin.