Maria; Or, The Wrongs of Woman
if he scarcely recollected what had passed the preceding evening. He
fixed his eyes on me for a moment, then, calling me a fool, asked ‘How
long I intended to continue this pretty farce? For his part, he was
devilish sick of it; but this was the plague of marrying women who
pretended to know something.’
“I made no other reply to this harangue, than to say, ‘That he ought to
be glad to get rid of a woman so unfit to be his companion—and that any
change in my conduct would be mean dissimulation; for maturer
reflection only gave the sacred seal of reason to my first resolution.’
“He looked as if he could have stamped with impatience, at being
obliged to stifle his rage; but, conquering his anger (for weak people,
whose passions seem the most ungovernable, restrain them with the
greatest ease, when they have a sufficient motive), he exclaimed, ‘Very
pretty, upon my soul! very pretty, theatrical flourishes! Pray, fair
Roxana, stoop from your altitudes, and remember that you are acting a
part in real life.’
“He uttered this speech with a self-satisfied air, and went down stairs
to dress.
“In about an hour he came to me again; and in the same tone said, ‘That
he came as my gentleman-usher to hand me down to breakfast.
“‘Of the black rod?’ asked I.
“This question, and the tone in which I asked it, a little disconcerted
him. To say the truth, I now felt no resentment; my firm resolution to
free myself from my ignoble thraldom, had absorbed the various emotions
which, during six years, had racked my soul. The duty pointed out by my
principles seemed clear; and not one tender feeling intruded to make me
swerve: The dislike which my husband had inspired was strong; but it
only led me to wish to avoid, to wish to let him drop out of my memory;
there was no misery, no torture that I would not deliberately have
chosen, rather than renew my lease of servitude.
“During the breakfast, he attempted to reason with me on the folly of
romantic sentiments; for this was the indiscriminate epithet he gave to
every mode of conduct or thinking superior to his own. He asserted,
‘that all the world were governed by their own interest; those who
pretended to be actuated by different motives, were only deeper knaves,
or fools crazed by books, who took for gospel all the rodomantade
nonsense written by men who knew nothing of the world. For his part, he
thanked God, he was no hypocrite; and, if he stretched a point
sometimes, it was always with an intention of paying every man his
own.’
“He then artfully insinuated, ‘that he daily expected a vessel to
arrive, a successful speculation, that would make him easy for the
present, and that he had several other schemes actually depending, that
could not fail. He had no doubt of becoming rich in a few years, though
he had been thrown back by some unlucky adventures at the setting out.’
“I mildly replied, ‘That I wished he might not involve himself still
deeper.’
“He had no notion that I was governed by a decision of judgment, not to
be compared with a mere spurt of resentment. He knew not what it was to
feel indignation against vice, and often boasted of his placable
temper, and readiness to forgive injuries. True; for he only considered
the being deceived, as an effort of skill he had not guarded against;
and then, with a cant of candour, would observe, ‘that he did not know
how he might himself have been tempted to act in the same
circumstances.’ And, as his heart never opened to friendship, it never
was wounded by disappointment. Every new acquaintance he protested, it
is true, was ‘the cleverest fellow in the world; and he really thought
so; till the novelty of his conversation or manners ceased to have any
effect on his sluggish spirits. His respect for rank or fortune was
more permanent, though he chanced to have no design of availing himself
of the influence of either to promote his own views.
“After a prefatory conversation,—my blood (I thought it had been
cooler) flushed over my whole countenance as he spoke—he alluded to my
situation. He desired me to reflect—‘and act like a prudent woman, as
the best proof of my superior understanding; for he must own I had
sense, did I know how to use it. I was not,’ he laid a stress on his
words, ‘without my passions; and a husband was a convenient cloke.—He
was liberal in his way of thinking; and why might not we, like many
other married people, who were above vulgar prejudices, tacitly consent
to let each other follow their own inclination?—He meant nothing more,
in the letter I made the ground of complaint; and the pleasure which I
seemed to take in Mr. S.‘s company, led him to conclude, that he was
not disagreeable to me.’
“A clerk brought in the letters of the day, and I, as I often did,
while he was discussing subjects of business, went to the _piano
forte_, and began to play a favourite air to restore myself, as it
were, to nature, and drive the sophisticated sentiments I had just been
obliged to listen to, out of my soul.
“They had excited sensations similar to those I have felt, in viewing
the squalid inhabitants of some of the lanes and back streets of the
metropolis, mortified at being compelled to consider them as my
fellow-creatures, as if an ape had claimed kindred with me. Or, as when
surrounded by a mephitical fog, I have wished to have a volley of
cannon fired, to clear the incumbered atmosphere, and give me room to
breathe and move.
“My spirits were all in arms, and I played a kind of extemporary
prelude. The cadence was probably wild and impassioned, while, lost in
thought, I made the sounds a kind of echo to my train of thinking.
“Pausing for a moment, I met Mr. Venables’ eyes. He was observing me
with an air of conceited satisfaction, as much as to say—‘My last
insinuation has done the business—she begins to know her own interest.’
Then gathering up his letters, he said, ‘That he hoped he should hear
no more romantic stuff, well enough in a miss just come from boarding
school;’ and went, as was his custom, to the counting-house. I still
continued playing; and, turning to a sprightly lesson, I executed it
with uncommon vivacity. I heard footsteps approach the door, and was
soon convinced that Mr. Venables was listening; the consciousness only
gave more animation to my fingers. He went down into the kitchen, and
the cook, probably by his desire, came to me, to know what I would
please to order for dinner. Mr. Venables came into the parlour again,
with apparent carelessness. I perceived that the cunning man was
overreaching himself; and I gave my directions as usual, and left the
room.
“While I was making some alteration in my dress, Mr. Venables peeped
in, and, begging my pardon for interrupting me, disappeared. I took up
some work (I could not read), and two or three messages were sent to
me, probably for no other purpose, but to enable Mr. Venables to
ascertain what I was about.
“I listened whenever I heard the street-door open; at last I imagined I
could distinguish Mr. Venables’ step, going out. I laid aside my work;
my heart palpitated; still I was afraid hastily to enquire; and I
waited a long half hour, before I ventured to ask the boy whether his
master was in the counting-house?
“Being answered in the negative, I bade him call me a coach, and
collecting a few necessaries hastily together, with a little parcel of
letters and papers which I had collected the preceding evening, I
hurried into it, desiring the coachman to drive to a distant part of
the town.
“I almost feared that the coach would break down before I got out of
the street; and, when I turned the corner, I seemed to breathe a freer
air. I was ready to imagine that I was rising above the thick
atmosphere of earth; or I felt, as wearied souls might be supposed to
feel on entering another state of existence.
“I stopped at one or two stands of coaches to elude pursuit, and then
drove round the skirts of the town to seek for an obscure lodging,
where I wished to remain concealed, till I could avail myself of my
uncle’s protection. I had resolved to assume my own name immediately,
and openly to avow my determination, without any formal vindication,
the moment I had found a home, in which I could rest free from the
daily alarm of expecting to see Mr. Venables enter.
“I looked at several lodgings; but finding that I could not, without a
reference to some acquaintance, who might inform my tyrant, get
admittance into a decent apartment—men have not all this trouble—I
thought of a woman whom I had assisted to furnish a little
haberdasher’s shop, and who I knew had a first floor to let.
“I went to her, and though I could not persuade her, that the quarrel
between me and Mr. Venables would never be made up, still she agreed to
conceal me for the present; yet assuring me at the same time, shaking
her head, that, when a woman was once married, she must bear every
thing. Her pale face, on which appeared a thousand haggard lines and
delving wrinkles, produced by what is emphatically termed fretting,
inforced her remark; and I had afterwards an opportunity of observing
the treatment she had to endure, which grizzled her into patience. She
toiled from morning till night; yet her husband would rob the till, and
take away the money reserved for paying bills; and, returning home
drunk, he would beat her if she chanced to offend him, though she had a
child at the breast.
“These scenes awoke me at night; and, in the morning, I heard her, as
usual, talk to her dear Johnny—he, forsooth, was her master; no slave
in the West Indies had one more despotic; but fortunately she was of
the true Russian breed of wives.
“My mind, during the few past days, seemed, as it were, disengaged from
my body; but, now the struggle was over, I felt very forcibly the
effect which perturbation of spirits produces on a woman in my
situation.
“The apprehension of a miscarriage, obliged me to confine myself to my
apartment near a fortnight; but I wrote to my uncle’s friend for money,
promising ‘to call on him, and explain my situation, when I was well
enough to go out; mean time I earnestly intreated him, not to mention
my place of abode to any one, lest my husband—such the law considered
him—should disturb the mind he could not conquer. I mentioned my
intention of setting out for Lisbon, to claim my uncle’s protection,
the moment my health would permit.’
“The tranquillity however, which I was recovering, was soon
interrupted. My landlady came up to me one day, with eyes swollen with
weeping, unable to utter what she was commanded to say. She declared,
‘That she was never so miserable in her life; that she must appear an
ungrateful monster; and that she would readily go down on her knees to
me, to intreat me to forgive her, as she had done to her husband to
spare her the cruel task.’ Sobs prevented her from proceeding, or
answering my impatient enquiries, to know what she meant.
“When she became a little more composed, she took a newspaper out of
her pocket, declaring, ‘that her heart smote her, but what could she
do?—she must obey her husband.’ I snatched the paper from her. An
advertisement quickly met my eye, purporting, that ‘Maria Venables had,
without any assignable cause, absconded from her husband; and any
person harbouring her, was menaced with the utmost severity of the
law.’
“Perfectly acquainted with Mr. Venables’ meanness of soul, this step
did not excite my surprise, and scarcely my contempt. Resentment in my
breast, never survived love. I bade the poor woman, in a kind tone,
wipe her eyes, and request her husband to come up, and speak to me
himself.
“My manner awed him. He respected a lady, though not a woman; and began
to mutter out an apology.
“‘Mr. Venables was a rich gentleman; he wished to oblige me, but he had