Maria; Or, The Wrongs of Woman
couch, and thought of her child till the broad glare of day again
invited her to the window. She looked not for the unknown, still how
great was her vexation at perceiving the back of a man, certainly he,
with his two attendants, as he turned into a side-path which led to the
house! A confused recollection of having seen somebody who resembled
him, immediately occurred, to puzzle and torment her with endless
conjectures. Five minutes sooner, and she should have seen his face,
and been out of suspense—was ever any thing so unlucky! His steady,
bold step, and the whole air of his person, bursting as it were from a
cloud, pleased her, and gave an outline to the imagination to sketch
the individual form she wished to recognize.
Feeling the disappointment more severely than she was willing to
believe, she flew to Rousseau, as her only refuge from the idea of him,
who might prove a friend, could she but find a way to interest him in
her fate; still the personification of Saint Preux, or of an ideal
lover far superior, was after this imperfect model, of which merely a
glance had been caught, even to the minutiae of the coat and hat of the
stranger. But if she lent St. Preux, or the demi-god of her fancy, his
form, she richly repaid him by the donation of all St. Preux’s
sentiments and feelings, culled to gratify her own, to which he seemed
to have an undoubted right, when she read on the margin of an
impassioned letter, written in the well-known hand—“Rousseau alone, the
true Prometheus of sentiment, possessed the fire of genius necessary to
pourtray the passion, the truth of which goes so directly to the
heart.”
Maria was again true to the hour, yet had finished Rousseau, and begun
to transcribe some selected passages; unable to quit either the author
or the window, before she had a glimpse of the countenance she daily
longed to see; and, when seen, it conveyed no distinct idea to her mind
where she had seen it before. He must have been a transient
acquaintance; but to discover an acquaintance was fortunate, could she
contrive to attract his attention, and excite his sympathy.
Every glance afforded colouring for the picture she was delineating on
her heart; and once, when the window was half open, the sound of his
voice reached her. Conviction flashed on her; she had certainly, in a
moment of distress, heard the same accents. They were manly, and
characteristic of a noble mind; nay, even sweet—or sweet they seemed to
her attentive ear.
She started back, trembling, alarmed at the emotion a strange
coincidence of circumstances inspired, and wondering why she thought so
much of a stranger, obliged as she had been by his timely interference;
[for she recollected, by degrees all the circumstances of their former
meeting.] She found however that she could think of nothing else; or,
if she thought of her daughter, it was to wish that she had a father
whom her mother could respect and love.
CHAPTER 3
When perusing the first parcel of books, Maria had, with her pencil,
written in one of them a few exclamations, expressive of compassion and
sympathy, which she scarcely remembered, till turning over the leaves
of one of the volumes, lately brought to her, a slip of paper dropped
out, which Jemima hastily snatched up.
“Let me see it,” demanded Maria impatiently, “You surely are not afraid
of trusting me with the effusions of a madman?” “I must consider,”
replied Jemima; and withdrew, with the paper in her hand.
In a life of such seclusion, the passions gain undue force; Maria
therefore felt a great degree of resentment and vexation, which she had
not time to subdue, before Jemima, returning, delivered the paper.
“Whoever you are, who partake of my fate, accept my sincere
commiseration—I would have said protection; but the privilege of man is
denied me.
“My own situation forces a dreadful suspicion on my mind—I may not
always languish in vain for freedom—say are you—I cannot ask the
question; yet I will remember you when my remembrance can be of any
use. I will enquire, why you are so mysteriously detained—and I will
have an answer.
“HENRY DARNFORD.”
By the most pressing intreaties, Maria prevailed on Jemima to permit
her to write a reply to this note. Another and another succeeded, in
which explanations were not allowed relative to their present
situation; but Maria, with sufficient explicitness, alluded to a former
obligation; and they insensibly entered on an interchange of sentiments
on the most important subjects. To write these letters was the business
of the day, and to receive them the moment of sunshine. By some means,
Darnford having discovered Maria’s window, when she next appeared at
it, he made her, behind his keepers, a profound bow of respect and
recognition.
Two or three weeks glided away in this kind of intercourse, during
which period Jemima, to whom Maria had given the necessary information
respecting her family, had evidently gained some intelligence, which
increased her desire of pleasing her charge, though she could not yet
determine to liberate her. Maria took advantage of this favourable
charge, without too minutely enquiring into the cause; and such was her
eagerness to hold human converse, and to see her former protector,
still a stranger to her, that she incessantly requested her guard to
gratify her more than curiosity.
Writing to Darnford, she was led from the sad objects before her, and
frequently rendered insensible to the horrid noises around her, which
previously had continually employed her feverish fancy. Thinking it
selfish to dwell on her own sufferings, when in the midst of wretches,
who had not only lost all that endears life, but their very selves, her
imagination was occupied with melancholy earnestness to trace the mazes
of misery, through which so many wretches must have passed to this
gloomy receptacle of disjointed souls, to the grand source of human
corruption. Often at midnight was she waked by the dismal shrieks of
demoniac rage, or of excruciating despair, uttered in such wild tones
of indescribable anguish as proved the total absence of reason, and
roused phantoms of horror in her mind, far more terrific than all that
dreaming superstition ever drew. Besides, there was frequently
something so inconceivably picturesque in the varying gestures of
unrestrained passion, so irresistibly comic in their sallies, or so
heart-piercingly pathetic in the little airs they would sing,
frequently bursting out after an awful silence, as to fascinate the
attention, and amuse the fancy, while torturing the soul. It was the
uproar of the passions which she was compelled to observe; and to mark
the lucid beam of reason, like a light trembling in a socket, or like
the flash which divides the threatening clouds of angry heaven only to
display the horrors which darkness shrouded.
Jemima would labour to beguile the tedious evenings, by describing the
persons and manners of the unfortunate beings, whose figures or voices
awoke sympathetic sorrow in Maria’s bosom; and the stories she told
were the more interesting, for perpetually leaving room to conjecture
something extraordinary. Still Maria, accustomed to generalize her
observations, was led to conclude from all she heard, that it was a
vulgar error to suppose that people of abilities were the most apt to
lose the command of reason. On the contrary, from most of the instances
she could investigate, she thought it resulted, that the passions only
appeared strong and disproportioned, because the judgment was weak and
unexercised; and that they gained strength by the decay of reason, as
the shadows lengthen during the sun’s decline.
Maria impatiently wished to see her fellow-sufferer; but Darnford was
still more earnest to obtain an interview. Accustomed to submit to
every impulse of passion, and never taught, like women, to restrain the
most natural, and acquire, instead of the bewitching frankness of
nature, a factitious propriety of behaviour, every desire became a
torrent that bore down all opposition.
His travelling trunk, which contained the books lent to Maria, had been
sent to him, and with a part of its contents he bribed his principal
keeper; who, after receiving the most solemn promise that he would
return to his apartment without attempting to explore any part of the
house, conducted him, in the dusk of the evening, to Maria’s room.
Jemima had apprized her charge of the visit, and she expected with
trembling impatience, inspired by a vague hope that he might again
prove her deliverer, to see a man who had before rescued her from
oppression. He entered with an animation of countenance, formed to
captivate an enthusiast; and, hastily turned his eyes from her to the
apartment, which he surveyed with apparent emotions of compassionate
indignation. Sympathy illuminated his eye, and, taking her hand, he
respectfully bowed on it, exclaiming—“This is extraordinary!—again to
meet you, and in such circumstances!” Still, impressive as was the
coincidence of events which brought them once more together, their full
hearts did not overflow.—[4]
[4] 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. [Godwin’s note]
[And though, after this first visit, they were permitted frequently to
repeat their interviews, they were for some time employed in] a
reserved conversation, to which all the world might have listened;
excepting, when discussing some literary subject, flashes of sentiment,
inforced by each relaxing feature, seemed to remind them that their
minds were already acquainted.
[By degrees, Darnford entered into the particulars of his story.] In a
few words, he informed her that he had been a thoughtless, extravagant
young man; yet, as he described his faults, they appeared to be the
generous luxuriancy of a noble mind. Nothing like meanness tarnished
the lustre of his youth, nor had the worm of selfishness lurked in the
unfolding bud, even while he had been the dupe of others. Yet he
tardily acquired the experience necessary to guard him against future
imposition.
“I shall weary you,” continued he, “by my egotism; and did not powerful
emotions draw me to you,”—his eyes glistened as he spoke, and a
trembling seemed to run through his manly frame,—“I would not waste
these precious moments in talking of myself.
“My father and mother were people of fashion; married by their parents.
He was fond of the turf, she of the card-table. I, and two or three
other children since dead, were kept at home till we became
intolerable. My father and mother had a visible dislike to each other,
continually displayed; the servants were of the depraved kind usually
found in the houses of people of fortune. My brothers and parents all
dying, I was left to the care of guardians; and sent to Eton. I never
knew the sweets of domestic affection, but I felt the want of
indulgence and frivolous respect at school. I will not disgust you with
a recital of the vices of my youth, which can scarcely be comprehended
by female delicacy. I was taught to love by a creature I am ashamed to
mention; and the other women with whom I afterwards became intimate,
were of a class of which you can have no knowledge. I formed my
acquaintance with them at the theaters; and, when vivacity danced in
their eyes, I was not easily disgusted by the vulgarity which flowed
from their lips. Having spent, a few years after I was of age, [the
whole of] a considerable patrimony, excepting a few hundreds, I had no
resource but to purchase a commission in a new-raised regiment,
destined to subjugate America. The regret I felt to renounce a life of