I die.
“This is the history of what I did in the time of my married life.
Here--known to no other mortal creature, confessed to my Creator
alone--is the truth.
“At the great day of the Resurrection, we shall all rise again in our
bodies as we have lived. When I am called before the Judgment Seat I
shall have this in my hand.
“Oh, just and merciful Judge, Thou knowest what I have suffered. My
trust is in Thee.”
2.
“I am the eldest of a large family, born of pious parents. We belonged
to the congregation of the Primitive Methodists.
“My sisters were all married before me. I remained for some years the
only one at home. At the latter part of the time my mother’s health
failed; and I managed the house in her place. Our spiritual pastor,
good Mr. Bapchild, used often to dine with us, on Sundays, between the
services. He approved of my management of the house, and, in particular,
of my cooking. This was not pleasant to my mother, who felt a jealousy
of my being, as it were, set over her in her place. My unhappiness at
home began in this way. My mother’s temper got worse as her health got
worse. My father was much away from us, traveling for his business. I
had to bear it all. About this time I began to think it would be well
for me if I could marry as my sisters had done; and have good Mr.
Bapchild to dinner, between the services, in a house of my own.
“In this frame of mind I made acquaintance with a young man who attended
service at our chapel.
“His name was Joel Dethridge. He had a beautiful voice. When we
sang hymns, he sang off the same book with me. By trade he was a
paper-hanger. We had much serious talk together. I walked with him on
Sundays. He was a good ten years younger than I was; and, being only a
journeyman, his worldly station was below mine. My mother found out the
liking that had grown up between us. She told my father the next time
he was at home. Also my married sisters and my brothers. They all
joined together to stop things from going further between me and Joel
Dethridge. I had a hard time of it. Mr. Bapchild expressed himself as
feeling much grieved at the turn things were taking. He introduced me
into a sermon--not by name, but I knew who it was meant for. Perhaps I
might have given way if they had not done one thing. They made inquiries
of my young man’s enemies, and brought wicked stories of him to me
behind his back. This, after we had sung off the same hymn-book, and
walked together, and agreed one with the other on religious subjects,
was too much to bear. I was of age to judge for myself. And I married
Joel Dethridge.”
3.
“My relations all turned their backs on me. Not one of them was present
at my marriage; my brother Reuben, in particular, who led the rest,
saying that they had done with me from that time forth. Mr. Bapchild was
much moved; shed tears, and said he would pray for me.
“I was married in London by a pastor who was a stranger; and we settled
in London with fair prospects. I had a little fortune of my own--my
share of some money left to us girls by our aunt Hester, whom I was
named after. It was three hundred pounds. Nearly one hundred of this I
spent in buying furniture to fit up the little house we took to live in.
The rest I gave to my husband to put into the bank against the time when
he wanted it to set up in business for himself.
“For three months, more or less, we got on nicely--except in one
particular. My husband never stirred in the matter of starting in
business for himself.
“He was once or twice cross with me when I said it seemed a pity to be
spending the money in the bank (which might be afterward wanted) instead
of earning more in business. Good Mr. Bapchild, happening about this
time to be in London, staid over Sunday, and came to dine with
us between the services. He had tried to make my peace with my
relations--but he had not succeeded. At my request he spoke to my
husband about the necessity of exerting himself. My husband took it
ill. I then saw him seriously out of temper for the first time. Good Mr.
Bapchild said no more. He appeared to be alarmed at what had happened,
and he took his leave early.
“Shortly afterward my husband went out. I got tea ready for him--but he
never came back. I got supper ready for him--but he never came back.
It was past twelve at night before I saw him again. I was very much
startled by the state he came home in. He didn’t speak like himself, or
look like himself: he didn’t seem to know me--wandered in his mind, and
fell all in a lump like on our bed. I ran out and fetched the doctor to
him.
“The doctor pulled him up to the light, and looked at him; smelled his
breath, and dropped him down again on the bed; turned about, and stared
at me. ‘What’s the matter, Sir?’ I says. ‘Do you mean to tell me you
don’t know?’ says the doctor. ‘No, Sir,’ says I. ‘Why what sort of a
woman are you,’ says he, ‘not to know a drunken man when you see him!’
With that he went away, and left me standing by the bedside, all in a
tremble from head to foot.
“This was how I first found out that I was the wife of a drunken man.”
4.
“I have omitted to say any thing about my husband’s family.
“While we were keeping company together he told me he was an
orphan--with an uncle and aunt in Canada, and an only brother settled in
Scotland. Before we were married he gave me a letter from this brother.
It was to say that he was sorry he was not able to come to England, and
be present at my marriage, and to wish me joy and the rest of it. Good
Mr. Bapchild (to whom, in my distress, I wrote word privately of what
had happened) wrote back in return, telling me to wait a little, and see
whether my husband did it again.
“I had not long to wait. He was in liquor again the next day, and the
next. Hearing this, Mr. Bapchild instructed me to send him the letter
from my husband’s brother. He reminded me of some of the stories about
my husband which I had refused to believe in the time before I was
married; and he said it might be well to make inquiries.
“The end of the inquiries was this. The brother, at that very time,
was placed privately (by his own request) under a doctor’s care to get
broken of habits of drinking. The craving for strong liquor (the doctor
wrote) was in the family. They would be sober sometimes for months
together, drinking nothing stronger than tea. Then the fit would seize
them; and they would drink, drink, drink, for days together, like the
mad and miserable wretches that they were.
“This was the husband I was married to. And I had offended all my
relations, and estranged them from me, for his sake. Here was surely a
sad prospect for a woman after only a few months of wedded life!
“In a year’s time the money in the bank was gone; and my husband was out
of employment. He always got work--being a first-rate hand when he was
sober--and always lost it again when the drinking-fit seized him. I was
loth to leave our nice little house, and part with my pretty furniture;
and I proposed to him to let me try for employment, by the day, as cook,
and so keep things going while he was looking out again for work. He was
sober and penitent at the time; and he agreed to what I proposed. And,
more than that, he took the Total Abstinence Pledge, and promised to
turn over a new leaf. Matters, as I thought, began to look fairly again.
We had nobody but our two selves to think of. I had borne no child,
and had no prospect of bearing one. Unlike most women, I thought this a
mercy instead of a misfortune. In my situation (as I soon grew to know)
my becoming a mother would only have proved to be an aggravation of my
hard lot.
“The sort of employment I wanted was not to be got in a day. Good Mr.
Bapchild gave me a character; and our landlord, a worthy man (belonging,
I am sorry to say, to the Popish Church), spoke for me to the steward of
a club. Still, it took time to persuade people that I was the thorough
good cook I claimed to be. Nigh on a fortnight had passed before I got
the chance I had been looking out for. I went home in good spirits (for
me) to report what had happened, and found the brokers in the house
carrying off the furniture which I had bought with my own money for sale
by auction. I asked them how they dared touch it without my leave. They
answered, civilly enough I must own, that they were acting under my
husband’s orders; and they went on removing it before my own eyes, to
the cart outside. I ran up stairs, and found my husband on the landing.
He was in liquor again. It is useless to say what passed between us. I
shall only mention that this was the first occasion on which he lifted
his fist, and struck me.”
5.
“Having a spirit of my own, I was resolved not to endure it. I ran out
to the Police Court, hard by.
“My money had not only bought the furniture--it had kept the house going
as well; paying the taxes which the Queen and the Parliament asked for
among other things. I now went to the magistrate to see what the Queen
and the Parliament, in return for the taxes, would do for _me._
“‘Is your furniture settled on yourself?’ he says, when I told him what
had happened.
“I didn’t understand what he meant. He turned to some person who was
sitting on the bench with him. ‘This is a hard case,’ he says. ‘Poor
people in this condition of life don’t even know what a marriage
settlement means. And, if they did, how many of them could afford to
pay the lawyer’s charges?’ Upon that he turned to me. ‘Yours is a common
case,’ he said. ‘In the present state of the law I can do nothing for
you.’
“It was impossible to believe that. Common or not, I put my case to him
over again.
“‘I have bought the furniture with my own money, Sir,’ I says. ‘It’s
mine, honestly come by, with bill and receipt to prove it. They are
taking it away from me by force, to sell it against my will. Don’t tell
me that’s the law. This is a Christian country. It can’t be.’
“‘My good creature,’ says he, ‘you are a married woman. The law
doesn’t allow a married woman to call any thing her own--unless she has
previously (with a lawyer’s help) made a bargain to that effect with her
husband before marrying him. You have made no bargain. Your husband has
a right to sell your furniture if he likes. I am sorry for you; I can’t
hinder him.’
“I was obstinate about it. ‘Please to answer me this, Sir,’ I says.
‘I’ve been told by wiser heads than mine that we all pay our taxes to
keep the Queen and the Parliament going; and that the Queen and the
Parliament make laws to protect us in return. I have paid my taxes. Why,
if you please, is there no law to protect me in return?’
“‘I can’t enter into that,’ says he. ‘I must take the law as I find it;
and so must you. I see a mark there on the side of your face. Has your
husband been beating you? If he has, summon him here I can punish him
for _that._’
“‘How can you punish him, Sir?’ says I.
“‘I can fine him,’ says he. ‘Or I can send him to prison.’
“‘As to the fine,’ says I, ‘he can pay that out of the money he gets
by selling my furniture. As to the prison, while he’s in it, what’s to
become of me, with my money spent by him, and my possessions gone; and
when he’s _out_ of it, what’s to become of me again, with a husband
whom I have been the means of punishing, and who comes home to his wife
knowing it? It’s bad enough as it is, Sir,’ says I. ‘There’s more that’s
bruised in me than what shows in my face. I wish you good-morning.’”
6.
“When I got back the furniture was gone, and my husband was gone. There
was nobody but the landlord in the empty house. He said all that could
be said--kindly enough toward me, so far as I was concerned. When he was
gone I locked my trunk, and got away in a cab after dark, and found a
lodging to lay my head in. If ever there was a lonely, broken-hearted
creature in the world, I was that creature that night.
“There was but one chance of earning my bread--to go to the employment
offered me (under a man cook, at a club). And there was but one
hope--the hope that I had lost sight of my husband forever.
“I went to my work--and prospered in it--and earned my first quarter’s
wages. But it’s not good for a woman to be situated as I was; friendless
and alone, with her things that she took a pride in sold away from her,
and with nothing to look forward to in her life to come. I was regular
in my attendance at chapel; but I think my heart began to get hardened,
and my mind to be overcast in secret with its own thoughts about this
time. There was a change coming. Two or three days after I had earned
the wages just mentioned my husband found me out. The furniture-money
was all spent. He made a disturbance at the club, I was only able
to quiet him by giving him all the money I could spare from my own
necessities. The scandal was brought before the committee. They said, if
the circumstance occurred again, they should be obliged to part with me.
In a fortnight the circumstance occurred again. It’s useless to dwell on
it. They all said they were sorry for me. I lost the place. My husband
went back with me to my lodgings. The next morning I caught him taking
my purse, with the few shillings I had in it, out of my trunk, which
he had broken open. We quarreled. And he struck me again--this time
knocking me down.
“I went once more to the police court, and told my story--to another
magistrate this time. My only petition was to have my husband kept away
from me. ‘I don’t want to be a burden on others’ (I says) ‘I don’t want
to do any thing but what’s right. I don’t even complain of having been
very cruelly used. All I ask is to be let to earn an honest living. Will
the law protect me in the effort to do that?’
“The answer, in substance, was that the law might protect me, provided I
had money to spend in asking some higher court to grant me a separation.
After allowing my husband to rob me openly of the only property I
possessed--namely, my furniture--the law turned round on me when I
called upon it in my distress, and held out its hand to be paid. I had
just three and sixpence left in the world--and the prospect, if I earned
more, of my husband coming (with permission of the law) and taking it
away from me. There was only one chance--namely, to get time to turn
round in, and to escape him again. I got a month’s freedom from him,
by charging him with knocking me down. The magistrate (happening to be
young, and new to his business) sent him to prison, instead of fining
him. This gave me time to get a character from the club, as well as a
special testimonial from good Mr. Bapchild. With the help of these, I
obtained a place in a private family--a place in the country, this time.
“I found myself now in a haven of peace. I was among worthy kind-hearted
people, who felt for my distresses, and treated me most indulgently.
Indeed, through all my troubles, I must say I have found one thing hold
good. In my experience, I have observed that people are oftener quick
than not to feel a human compassion for others in distress. Also, that
they mostly see plain enough what’s hard and cruel and unfair on them in
the governing of the country which they help to keep going. But once ask
them to get on from sitting down and grumbling about it, to rising up
and setting it right, and what do you find them? As helpless as a flock
of sheep--that’s what you find them.
“More than six months passed, and I saved a little money again.
“One night, just as we were going to bed, there was a loud ring at the
bell. The footman answered the door--and I heard my husband’s voice
in the hall. He had traced me, with the help of a man he knew in the
police; and he had come to claim his rights. I offered him all the
little money I had, to let me be. My good master spoke to him. It was
all useless. He was obstinate and savage. If--instead of my running
off from him--it had been all the other way and he had run off from me,
something might have been done (as I understood) to protect me. But he
stuck to his wife. As long as I could make a farthing, he stuck to his
wife. Being married to him, I had no right to have left him; I was bound
to go with my husband; there was no escape for me. I bade them good-by.
And I have never forgotten their kindness to me from that day to this.
“My husband took me back to London.
“As long as the money lasted, the drinking went on. When it was gone, I
was beaten again. Where was the remedy? There was no remedy, but to try
and escape him once more. Why didn’t I have him locked up? What was the
good of having him locked up? In a few weeks he would be out of prison;
sober and penitent, and promising amendment--and then when the fit took
him, there he would be, the same furious savage that he had been often
and often before. My heart got hard under the hopelessness of it; and
dark thoughts beset me, mostly at night. About this time I began to say
to myself, ‘There’s no deliverance from this, but in death--his death or
mine.’
“Once or twice I went down to the bridges after dark and looked over at
the river. No. I wasn’t the sort of woman who ends her own wretchedness
in that way. Your blood must be in a fever, and your head in a flame--at
least I fancy so--you must be hurried into it, like, to go and make away
with yourself. My troubles never took that effect on me. I always turned
cold under them instead of hot. Bad for me, I dare say; but what you
are--you are. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his
spots?
“I got away from him once more, and found good employment once more. It
don’t matter how, and it don’t matter where. My story is always the same
thing, over and over again. Best get to the end.
“There was one change, however, this time. My employment was not in a
private family. I was also allowed to teach cookery to young women, in
my leisure hours. What with this, and what with a longer time passing
on the present occasion before my husband found me out, I was as
comfortably off as in my position I could hope to be. When my work was
done, I went away at night to sleep in a lodging of my own. It was only
a bedroom; and I furnished it myself--partly for the sake of economy
(the rent being not half as much as for a furnished room); and partly
for the sake of cleanliness. Through all my troubles I always liked
things neat about me--neat and shapely and good.
“Well, it’s needless to say how it ended. He found me out again--this
time by a chance meeting with me in the street.
“He was in rags, and half starved. But that didn’t matter now. All he
had to do was to put his hand into my pocket and take what he wanted.
There is no limit, in England, to what a bad husband may do--as long as
he sticks to his wife. On the present occasion, he was cunning enough to
see that he would be the loser if he disturbed me in my employment. For
a while things went on as smoothly as they could. I made a pretense that
the work was harder than usual; and I got leave (loathing the sight of
him, I honestly own) to sleep at the place where I was employed. This
was not for long. The fit took him again, in due course; and he came
and made a disturbance. As before, this was not to be borne by decent
people. As before, they were sorry to part with me. As before, I lost my
place.
“Another woman would have gone mad under it. I fancy it just missed, by
a hair’s breadth, maddening Me.
“When I looked at him that night, deep in his drunken sleep, I thought
of Jael and Sisera (see the book of Judges; chapter 4th; verses 17 to
21). It says, she ‘took a nail of the tent, and took a hammer in her
hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples,
and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he
died.’ She did this deed to deliver her nation from Sisera. If there had
been a hammer and a nail in the room that night, I think I should have
been Jael--with this difference, that I should have done it to deliver
myself.
“With the morning this passed off, for the time. I went and spoke to a
lawyer.
“Most people, in my place, would have had enough of the law already. But
I was one of the sort who drain the cup to the dregs. What I said to him
was, in substance, this. ‘I come to ask your advice about a madman. Mad
people, as I understand it, are people who have lost control over their
own minds. Sometimes this leads them to entertaining delusions; and
sometimes it leads them to committing actions hurtful to others or to
themselves. My husband has lost all control over his own craving for
strong drink. He requires to be kept from liquor, as other madmen
require to be kept from attempting their own lives, or the lives of
those about them. It’s a frenzy beyond his own control, with _him_--just
as it’s a frenzy beyond their own control, with _them._ There are
Asylums for mad people, all over the country, at the public disposal, on
certain conditions. If I fulfill those conditions, will the law deliver
me from the misery of being married to a madman, whose madness is
drink?’--‘No,’ says the lawyer. ‘The law of England declines to consider
an incurable drunkard as a fit object for restraint, the law of England
leaves the husbands and wives of such people in a perfectly helpless
situation, to deal with their own misery as they best can.’
“I made my acknowledgments to the gentleman and left him. The last
chance was this chance--and this had failed me.”
7.
“The thought that had once found its way into my mind already, now found
its way back again, and never altogether left me from that time forth.
No deliverance for me but in death--his death, or mine.
“I had it before me night and day; in chapel and out of chapel just the
same. I read the story of Jael and Sisera so often that the Bible got to
open of itself at that place.
“The laws of my country, which ought to have protected me as an honest
woman, left me helpless. In place of the laws I had no friend near to
open my heart to. I was shut up in myself. And I was married to that
man. Consider me as a human creature, and say, Was this not trying my
humanity very hardly?
“I wrote to good Mr. Bapchild. Not going into particulars; only telling
him I was beset by temptation, and begging him to come and help me. He
was confined to his bed by illness; he could only write me a letter
of good advice. To profit by good advice people must have a glimpse
of happiness to look forward to as a reward for exerting themselves.
Religion itself is obliged to hold out a reward, and to say to us
poor mortals, Be good, and you shall go to Heaven. I had no glimpse
of happiness. I was thankful (in a dull sort of way) to good Mr.
Bapchild--and there it ended.
“The time had been when a word from my old pastor would have put me in
the right way again. I began to feel scared by myself. If the next ill
usage I received from Joel Dethridge found me an unchanged woman, it was
borne in strongly on my mind that I should be as likely as not to get my
deliverance from him by my own hand.
“Goaded to it, by the fear of this, I humbled myself before my relations
for the first time. I wrote to beg their pardon; to own that they had
proved to be right in their opinion of my husband; and to entreat them
to be friends with me again, so far as to let me visit them from time
to time. My notion was, that it might soften my heart if I could see the
old place, and talk the old talk, and look again at the well-remembered
faces. I am almost ashamed to own it--but, if I had had any thing to
give, I would have parted with it all, to be allowed to go back into
mother’s kitchen and cook the Sunday dinner for them once more.
“But this was not to be. Not long before my letter was received mother
had died. They laid it all at my door. She had been ailing for years
past, and the doctors had said it was hopeless from the first--but they
laid it all at my door. One of my sisters wrote to say that much, in
as few words as could possibly suffice for saying it. My father never
answered my letter at all.”
8.
“Magistrates and lawyers; relations and friends; endurance of injuries,
patience, hope, and honest work--I had tried all these, and tried them
vainly. Look round me where I might, the prospect was closed on all
sides.
“At this time my husband had got a little work to do. He came home out
of temper one night, and I gave him a warning. ‘Don’t try me too far,
Joel, for your own sake,’ was all I said. It was one of his sober days;
and, for the first time, a word from me seemed to have an effect on him.
He looked hard at me for a minute or so. And then he went and sat down
in a corner, and held his peace.
“This was on a Tuesday in the week. On the Saturday he got paid, and the
drinking fit took him again.