the preying activity of my mind, was books, which I read with great
avidity, profiting by the conversation of my host, a man of sound
understanding. My political sentiments now underwent a total change; and,
dazzled by the hospitality of the Americans, I determined to take up my
abode with freedom. I, therefore, with my usual impetuosity, sold my
commission, and travelled into the interior parts of the country, to lay
out my money to advantage. Added to this, I did not much like the
puritanical manners of the large towns. Inequality of condition was there
most disgustingly galling. The only pleasure wealth afforded, was to make
an ostentatious display of it; for the cultivation of the fine arts, or
literature, had not introduced into the first circles that polish of
manners which renders the rich so essentially superior to the poor in
Europe. Added to this, an influx of vices had been let in by the
Revolution, and the most rigid principles of religion shaken to the
centre, before the understanding could be gradually emancipated from the
prejudices which led their ancestors undauntedly to seek an inhospitable
clime and unbroken soil. The resolution, that led them, in pursuit of
independence, to embark on rivers like seas, to search for unknown
shores, and to sleep under the hovering mists of endless forests, whose
baleful damps agued their limbs, was now turned into commercial
speculations, till the national character exhibited a phenomenon in the
history of the human mind--a head enthusiastically enterprising, with
cold selfishness of heart. And woman, lovely woman!--they charm every
where--still there is a degree of prudery, and a want of taste and ease
in the manners of the American women, that renders them, in spite of
their roses and lilies, far inferior to our European charmers. In the
country, they have often a bewitching simplicity of character; but, in
the cities, they have all the airs and ignorance of the ladies who give
the tone to the circles of the large trading towns in England. They are
fond of their ornaments, merely because they are good, and not because
they embellish their persons; and are more gratified to inspire the women
with jealousy of these exterior advantages, than the men with love. All
the frivolity which often (excuse me, Madam) renders the society of
modest women so stupid in England, here seemed to throw still more leaden
fetters on their charms. Not being an adept in gallantry, I found that I
could only keep myself awake in their company by making downright love to
them.
"But, not to intrude on your patience, I retired to the track of land
which I had purchased in the country, and my time passed pleasantly
enough while I cut down the trees, built my house, and planted my
different crops. But winter and idleness came, and I longed for more
elegant society, to hear what was passing in the world, and to do
something better than vegetate with the animals that made a very
considerable part of my household. Consequently, I determined to travel.
Motion was a substitute for variety of objects; and, passing over immense
tracks of country, I exhausted my exuberant spirits, without obtaining
much experience. I every where saw industry the fore-runner and not the
consequence, of luxury; but this country, every thing being on an ample
scale, did not afford those picturesque views, which a certain degree of
cultivation is necessary gradually to produce. The eye wandered without
an object to fix upon over immeasureable plains, and lakes that seemed
replenished by the ocean, whilst eternal forests of small clustering
trees, obstructed the circulation of air, and embarrassed the path,
without gratifying the eye of taste. No cottage smiling in the waste, no
travellers hailed us, to give life to silent nature; or, if perchance we
saw the print of a footstep in our path, it was a dreadful warning to
turn aside; and the head ached as if assailed by the scalping knife. The
Indians who hovered on the skirts of the European settlements had only
learned of their neighbours to plunder, and they stole their guns from
them to do it with more safety.
"From the woods and back settlements, I returned to the towns, and
learned to eat and drink most valiantly; but without entering into
commerce (and I detested commerce) I found I could not live there; and,
growing heartily weary of the land of liberty and vulgar aristocracy,
seated on her bags of dollars, I resolved once more to visit Europe. I
wrote to a distant relation in England, with whom I had been educated,
mentioning the vessel in which I intended to sail. Arriving in London, my
senses were intoxicated. I ran from street to street, from theatre to
theatre, and the women of the town (again I must beg pardon for my
habitual frankness) appeared to me like angels.
"A week was spent in this thoughtless manner, when, returning very late
to the hotel in which I had lodged ever since my arrival, I was knocked
down in a private street, and hurried, in a state of insensibility, into
a coach, which brought me hither, and I only recovered my senses to be
treated like one who had lost them. My keepers are deaf to my
remonstrances and enquiries, yet assure me that my confinement shall not
last long. Still I cannot guess, though I weary myself with conjectures,
why I am confined, or in what part of England this house is situated. I
imagine sometimes that I hear the sea roar, and wished myself again on
the Atlantic, till I had a glimpse of you[65-A]."
A few moments were only allowed to Maria to comment on this narrative,
when Darnford left her to her own thoughts, to the "never ending, still
beginning," task of weighing his words, recollecting his tones of voice,
and feeling them reverberate on her heart.
FOOTNOTES:
[54-A] The copy which had received the author's last corrections, breaks
off in this place, and the pages which follow, to the end of Chap. IV,
are printed from a copy in a less finished state.
[65-A] The introduction of Darnford as the deliverer of Maria in a former
instance, appears to have been an after-thought of the author. This has
occasioned the omission of any allusion to that circumstance in the
preceding narration.
EDITOR.
CHAP. IV.
PITY, and the forlorn seriousness of adversity, have both been considered
as dispositions favourable to love, while satirical writers have
attributed the propensity to the relaxing effect of idleness, what chance
then had Maria of escaping, when pity, sorrow, and solitude all conspired
to soften her mind, and nourish romantic wishes, and, from a natural
progress, romantic expectations?
Maria was six-and-twenty. But, such was the native soundness of her
constitution, that time had only given to her countenance the character
of her mind. Revolving thought, and exercised affections had banished
some of the playful graces of innocence, producing insensibly that
irregularity of features which the struggles of the understanding to
trace or govern the strong emotions of the heart, are wont to imprint on
the yielding mass. Grief and care had mellowed, without obscuring, the
bright tints of youth, and the thoughtfulness which resided on her brow
did not take from the feminine softness of her features; nay, such was
the sensibility which often mantled over it, that she frequently
appeared, like a large proportion of her sex, only born to feel; and the
activity of her well-proportioned, and even almost voluptuous figure,
inspired the idea of strength of mind, rather than of body. There was a
simplicity sometimes indeed in her manner, which bordered on infantine
ingenuousness, that led people of common discernment to underrate her
talents, and smile at the flights of her imagination. But those who could
not comprehend the delicacy of her sentiments, were attached by her
unfailing sympathy, so that she was very generally beloved by characters
of very different descriptions; still, she was too much under the
influence of an ardent imagination to adhere to common rules.
There are mistakes of conduct which at five-and-twenty prove the strength
of the mind, that, ten or fifteen years after, would demonstrate its
weakness, its incapacity to acquire a sane judgment. The youths who are
satisfied with the ordinary pleasures of life, and do not sigh after
ideal phantoms of love and friendship, will never arrive at great
maturity of understanding; but if these reveries are cherished, as is too
frequently the case with women, when experience ought to have taught
them in what human happiness consists, they become as useless as they are
wretched. Besides, their pains and pleasures are so dependent on outward
circumstances, on the objects of their affections, that they seldom act
from the impulse of a nerved mind, able to choose its own pursuit.
Having had to struggle incessantly with the vices of mankind, Maria's
imagination found repose in pourtraying the possible virtues the world
might contain. Pygmalion formed an ivory maid, and longed for an
informing soul. She, on the contrary, combined all the qualities of a
hero's mind, and fate presented a statue in which she might enshrine
them.
We mean not to trace the progress of this passion, or recount how often
Darnford and Maria were obliged to part in the midst of an interesting
conversation. Jemima ever watched on the tip-toe of fear, and frequently
separated them on a false alarm, when they would have given worlds to
remain a little longer together.
A magic lamp now seemed to be suspended in Maria's prison, and fairy
landscapes flitted round the gloomy walls, late so blank. Rushing from
the depth of despair, on the seraph wing of hope, she found herself
happy.--She was beloved, and every emotion was rapturous.
To Darnford she had not shown a decided affection; the fear of outrunning
his, a sure proof of love, made her often assume a coldness and
indifference foreign from her character; and, even when giving way to the
playful emotions of a heart just loosened from the frozen bond of grief,
there was a delicacy in her manner of expressing her sensibility, which
made him doubt whether it was the effect of love.
One evening, when Jemima left them, to listen to the sound of a distant
footstep, which seemed cautiously to approach, he seized Maria's hand--it
was not withdrawn. They conversed with earnestness of their situation;
and, during the conversation, he once or twice gently drew her towards
him. He felt the fragrance of her breath, and longed, yet feared, to
touch the lips from which it issued; spirits of purity seemed to guard
them, while all the enchanting graces of love sported on her cheeks, and
languished in her eyes.
Jemima entering, he reflected on his diffidence with poignant regret,
and, she once more taking alarm, he ventured, as Maria stood near his
chair, to approach her lips with a declaration of love. She drew back
with solemnity, he hung down his head abashed; but lifting his eyes
timidly, they met her's; she had determined, during that instant, and
suffered their rays to mingle. He took, with more ardour, reassured, a
half-consenting, half-reluctant kiss, reluctant only from modesty; and
there was a sacredness in her dignified manner of reclining her glowing
face on his shoulder, that powerfully impressed him. Desire was lost in
more ineffable emotions, and to protect her from insult and sorrow--to
make her happy, seemed not only the first wish of his heart, but the most
noble duty of his life. Such angelic confidence demanded the fidelity of
honour; but could he, feeling her in every pulsation, could he ever
change, could he be a villain? The emotion with which she, for a moment,
allowed herself to be pressed to his bosom, the tear of rapturous
sympathy, mingled with a soft melancholy sentiment of recollected
disappointment, said--more of truth and faithfulness, than the tongue
could have given utterance to in hours! They were silent--yet discoursed,
how eloquently? till, after a moment's reflection, Maria drew her chair
by the side of his, and, with a composed sweetness of voice, and
supernatural benignity of countenance, said, "I must open my whole heart
to you; you must be told who I am, why I am here, and why, telling you I
am a wife, I blush not to"--the blush spoke the rest.
Jemima was again at her elbow, and the restraint of her presence did not
prevent an animated conversation, in which love, sly urchin, was ever at
bo-peep.
So much of heaven did they enjoy, that paradise bloomed around them; or
they, by a powerful spell, had been transported into Armida's garden.
Love, the grand enchanter, "lapt them in Elysium," and every sense was
harmonized to joy and social extacy. So animated, indeed, were their
accents of tenderness, in discussing what, in other circumstances, would
have been common-place subjects, that Jemima felt, with surprise, a tear
of pleasure trickling down her rugged cheeks. She wiped it away, half
ashamed; and when Maria kindly enquired the cause, with all the eager
solicitude of a happy being wishing to impart to all nature its
overflowing felicity, Jemima owned that it was the first tear that social
enjoyment had ever drawn from her. She seemed indeed to breathe more
freely; the cloud of suspicion cleared away from her brow; she felt
herself, for once in her life, treated like a fellow-creature.
Imagination! who can paint thy power; or reflect the evanescent tints of
hope fostered by thee? A despondent gloom had long obscured Maria's
horizon--now the sun broke forth, the rainbow appeared, and every
prospect was fair. Horror still reigned in the darkened cells, suspicion
lurked in the passages, and whispered along the walls. The yells of men
possessed, sometimes made them pause, and wonder that they felt so happy,
in a tomb of living death. They even chid themselves for such apparent
insensibility; still the world contained not three happier beings. And
Jemima, after again patrolling the passage, was so softened by the air of
confidence which breathed around her, that she voluntarily began an
account of herself.
CHAP. V.
"MY father," said Jemima, "seduced my mother, a pretty girl, with whom he
lived fellow-servant; and she no sooner perceived the natural, the
dreaded consequence, than the terrible conviction flashed on her--that
she was ruined. Honesty, and a regard for her reputation, had been the
only principles inculcated by her mother; and they had been so forcibly
impressed, that she feared shame, more than the poverty to which it would
lead. Her incessant importunities to prevail upon my father to screen her
from reproach by marrying her, as he had promised in the fervour of
seduction, estranged him from her so completely, that her very person
became distasteful to him; and he began to hate, as well as despise me,
before I was born.
"My mother, grieved to the soul by his neglect, and unkind treatment,
actually resolved to famish herself; and injured her health by the
attempt; though she had not sufficient resolution to adhere to her
project, or renounce it entirely. Death came not at her call; yet sorrow,
and the methods she adopted to conceal her condition, still doing the
work of a house-maid, had such an effect on her constitution, that she
died in the wretched garret, where her virtuous mistress had forced her
to take refuge in the very pangs of labour, though my father, after a
slight reproof, was allowed to remain in his place--allowed by the mother
of six children, who, scarcely permitting a footstep to be heard, during
her month's indulgence, felt no sympathy for the poor wretch, denied
every comfort required by her situation.
"The day my mother died, the ninth after my birth, I was consigned to the
care of the cheapest nurse my father could find; who suckled her own
child at the same time, and lodged as many more as she could get, in two
cellar-like apartments.
"Poverty, and the habit of seeing children die off her hands, had so
hardened her heart, that the office of a mother did not awaken the
tenderness of a woman; nor were the feminine caresses which seem a part
of the rearing of a child, ever bestowed on me. The chicken has a wing to
shelter under; but I had no bosom to nestle in, no kindred warmth to
foster me. Left in dirt, to cry with cold and hunger till I was weary,
and sleep without ever being prepared by exercise, or lulled by kindness
to rest; could I be expected to become any thing but a weak and rickety
babe? Still, in spite of neglect, I continued to exist, to learn to curse
existence," her countenance grew ferocious as she spoke, "and the
treatment that rendered me miserable, seemed to sharpen my wits. Confined
then in a damp hovel, to rock the cradle of the succeeding tribe, I
looked like a little old woman, or a hag shrivelling into nothing. The
furrows of reflection and care contracted the youthful cheek, and gave a
sort of supernatural wildness to the ever watchful eye. During this
period, my father had married another fellow-servant, who loved him less,
and knew better how to manage his passion, than my mother. She likewise
proving with child, they agreed to keep a shop: my step-mother, if, being
an illegitimate offspring, I may venture thus to characterize her, having
obtained a sum of a rich relation, for that purpose.
"Soon after her lying-in, she prevailed on my father to take me home, to
save the expence of maintaining me, and of hiring a girl to assist her in
the care of the child. I was young, it was true, but appeared a knowing
little thing, and might be made handy. Accordingly I was brought to her
house; but not to a home--for a home I never knew. Of this child, a
daughter, she was extravagantly fond; and it was a part of my employment,
to assist to spoil her, by humouring all her whims, and bearing all her
caprices. Feeling her own consequence, before she could speak, she had
learned the art of tormenting me, and if I ever dared to resist, I
received blows, laid on with no compunctious hand, or was sent to bed
dinnerless, as well as supperless. I said that it was a part of my daily
labour to attend this child, with the servility of a slave; still it was
but a part. I was sent out in all seasons, and from place to place, to
carry burdens far above my strength, without being allowed to draw near
the fire, or ever being cheered by encouragement or kindness. No wonder
then, treated like a creature of another species, that I began to envy,
and at length to hate, the darling of the house. Yet, I perfectly
remember, that it was the caresses, and kind expressions of my
step-mother, which first excited my jealous discontent. Once, I cannot
forget it, when she was calling in vain her wayward child to kiss her, I
ran to her, saying, 'I will kiss you, ma'am!' and how did my heart, which
was in my mouth, sink, what was my debasement of soul, when pushed away
with--'I do not want you, pert thing!' Another day, when a new gown had
excited the highest good humour, and she uttered the appropriate _dear_,
addressed unexpectedly to me, I thought I could never do enough to please
her; I was all alacrity, and rose proportionably in my own estimation.
"As her daughter grew up, she was pampered with cakes and fruit, while I
was, literally speaking, fed with the refuse of the table, with her
leavings. A liquorish tooth is, I believe, common to children, and I used
to steal any thing sweet, that I could catch up with a chance of
concealment. When detected, she was not content to chastize me herself at
the moment, but, on my father's return in the evening (he was a shopman),
the principal discourse was to recount my faults, and attribute them to
the wicked disposition which I had brought into the world with me,
inherited from my mother. He did not fail to leave the marks of his
resentment on my body, and then solaced himself by playing with my
sister.--I could have murdered her at those moments. To save myself from
these unmerciful corrections, I resorted to falshood, and the untruths
which I sturdily maintained, were brought in judgment against me, to
support my tyrant's inhuman charge of my natural propensity to vice.
Seeing me treated with contempt, and always being fed and dressed
better, my sister conceived a contemptuous opinion of me, that proved an
obstacle to all affection; and my father, hearing continually of my
faults, began to consider me as a curse entailed on him for his sins: he
was therefore easily prevailed on to bind me apprentice to one of my
step-mother's friends, who kept a slop-shop in Wapping. I was represented
(as it was said) in my true colours; but she, 'warranted,' snapping her
fingers, 'that she should break my spirit or heart.'
"My mother replied, with a whine, 'that if any body could make me better,
it was such a clever woman as herself; though, for her own part, she had
tried in vain; but good-nature was her fault.'
"I shudder with horror, when I recollect the treatment I had now to
endure. Not only under the lash of my task-mistress, but the drudge of
the maid, apprentices and children, I never had a taste of human kindness
to soften the rigour of perpetual labour. I had been introduced as an
object of abhorrence into the family; as a creature of whom my
step-mother, though she had been kind enough to let me live in the house
with her own child, could make nothing. I was described as a wretch,
whose nose must be kept to the grinding stone--and it was held there with
an iron grasp. It seemed indeed the privilege of their superior nature to
kick me about, like the dog or cat. If I were attentive, I was called
fawning, if refractory, an obstinate mule, and like a mule I received
their censure on my loaded back. Often has my mistress, for some
instance of forgetfulness, thrown me from one side of the kitchen to the
other, knocked my head against the wall, spit in my face, with various
refinements on barbarity that I forbear to enumerate, though they were
all acted over again by the servant, with additional insults, to which
the appellation of _bastard_, was commonly added, with taunts or sneers.
But I will not attempt to give you an adequate idea of my situation, lest
you, who probably have never been drenched with the dregs of human
misery, should think I exaggerate.
"I stole now, from absolute necessity,--bread; yet whatever else was
taken, which I had it not in my power to take, was ascribed to me. I was
the filching cat, the ravenous dog, the dumb brute, who must bear all;
for if I endeavoured to exculpate myself, I was silenced, without any
enquiries being made, with 'Hold your tongue, you never tell truth.' Even
the very air I breathed was tainted with scorn; for I was sent to the
neighbouring shops with Glutton, Liar, or Thief, written on my forehead.
This was, at first, the most bitter punishment; but sullen pride, or a
kind of stupid desperation, made me, at length, almost regardless of the
contempt, which had wrung from me so many solitary tears at the only
moments when I was allowed to rest.
"Thus was I the mark of cruelty till my sixteenth year; and then I have
only to point out a change of misery; for a period I never knew. Allow me
first to make one observation. Now I look back, I cannot help
attributing the greater part of my misery, to the misfortune of having
been thrown into the world without the grand support of life--a mother's
affection. I had no one to love me; or to make me respected, to enable me
to acquire respect. I was an egg dropped on the sand; a pauper by nature,
shunted from family to family, who belonged to nobody--and nobody cared
for me. I was despised from my birth, and denied the chance of obtaining
a footing for myself in society. Yes; I had not even the chance of being
considered as a fellow-creature--yet all the people with whom I lived,
brutalized as they were by the low cunning of trade, and the despicable
shifts of poverty, were not without bowels, though they never yearned for
me. I was, in fact, born a slave, and chained by infamy to slavery
during the whole of existence, without having any companions to alleviate
it by sympathy, or teach me how to rise above it by their example. But,
to resume the thread of my tale--
"At sixteen, I suddenly grew tall, and something like comeliness appeared
on a Sunday, when I had time to wash my face, and put on clean clothes.
My master had once or twice caught hold of me in the passage; but I
instinctively avoided his disgusting caresses. One day however, when the
family were at a methodist meeting, he contrived to be alone in the house
with me, and by blows--yes; blows and menaces, compelled me to submit to
his ferocious desire; and, to avoid my mistress's fury, I was obliged in
future to comply, and skulk to my loft at his command, in spite of
increasing loathing.