Maria; Or, The Wrongs of Woman
whither. The poor woman at whose house I lodged, compassionating my
state, got me into the hospital; and the family where I received the
hurt, sent me five shillings, three and six-pence of which I gave at my
admittance—I know not for what.
“My leg grew quickly better; but I was dismissed before my cure was
completed, because I could not afford to have my linen washed to appear
decently, as the virago of a nurse said, when the gentlemen (the
surgeons) came. I cannot give you an adequate idea of the wretchedness
of an hospital; every thing is left to the care of people intent on
gain. The attendants seem to have lost all feeling of compassion in the
bustling discharge of their offices; death is so familiar to them, that
they are not anxious to ward it off. Every thing appeared to be
conducted for the accommodation of the medical men and their pupils,
who came to make experiments on the poor, for the benefit of the rich.
One of the physicians, I must not forget to mention, gave me
half-a-crown, and ordered me some wine, when I was at the lowest ebb. I
thought of making my case known to the lady-like matron; but her
forbidding countenance prevented me. She condescended to look on the
patients, and make general enquiries, two or three times a week; but
the nurses knew the hour when the visit of ceremony would commence, and
every thing was as it should be.
“After my dismission, I was more at a loss than ever for a subsistence,
and, not to weary you with a repetition of the same unavailing
attempts, unable to stand at the washing-tub, I began to consider the
rich and poor as natural enemies, and became a thief from principle. I
could not now cease to reason, but I hated mankind. I despised myself,
yet I justified my conduct. I was taken, tried, and condemned to six
months’ imprisonment in a house of correction. My soul recoils with
horror from the remembrance of the insults I had to endure, till,
branded with shame, I was turned loose in the street, pennyless. I
wandered from street to street, till, exhausted by hunger and fatigue,
I sunk down senseless at a door, where I had vainly demanded a morsel
of bread. I was sent by the inhabitant to the work-house, to which he
had surlily bid me go, saying, he ‘paid enough in conscience to the
poor,’ when, with parched tongue, I implored his charity. If those
well-meaning people who exclaim against beggars, were acquainted with
the treatment the poor receive in many of these wretched asylums, they
would not stifle so easily involuntary sympathy, by saying that they
have all parishes to go to, or wonder that the poor dread to enter the
gloomy walls. What are the common run of workhouses, but prisons, in
which many respectable old people, worn out by immoderate labour, sink
into the grave in sorrow, to which they are carried like dogs!”
Alarmed by some indistinct noise, Jemima rose hastily to listen, and
Maria, turning to Darnford, said, “I have indeed been shocked beyond
expression when I have met a pauper’s funeral. A coffin carried on the
shoulders of three or four ill-looking wretches, whom the imagination
might easily convert into a band of assassins, hastening to conceal the
corpse, and quarrelling about the prey on their way. I know it is of
little consequence how we are consigned to the earth; but I am led by
this brutal insensibility, to what even the animal creation appears
forcibly to feel, to advert to the wretched, deserted manner in which
they died.”
“True,” rejoined Darnford, “and, till the rich will give more than a
part of their wealth, till they will give time and attention to the
wants of the distressed, never let them boast of charity. Let them open
their hearts, and not their purses, and employ their minds in the
service, if they are really actuated by humanity; or charitable
institutions will always be the prey of the lowest order of knaves.”
Jemima returning, seemed in haste to finish her tale. “The overseer
farmed the poor of different parishes, and out of the bowels of poverty
was wrung the money with which he purchased this dwelling, as a private
receptacle for madness. He had been a keeper at a house of the same
description, and conceived that he could make money much more readily
in his old occupation. He is a shrewd—shall I say it?—villain. He
observed something resolute in my manner, and offered to take me with
him, and instruct me how to treat the disturbed minds he meant to
intrust to my care. The offer of forty pounds a year, and to quit a
workhouse, was not to be despised, though the condition of shutting my
eyes and hardening my heart was annexed to it.
“I agreed to accompany him; and four years have I been attendant on
many wretches, and”—she lowered her voice,—“the witness of many
enormities. In solitude my mind seemed to recover its force, and many
of the sentiments which I imbibed in the only tolerable period of my
life, returned with their full force. Still what should induce me to be
the champion for suffering humanity?—Who ever risked any thing for
me?—Who ever acknowledged me to be a fellow-creature?”—
Maria took her hand, and Jemima, more overcome by kindness than she had
ever been by cruelty, hastened out of the room to conceal her emotions.
Darnford soon after heard his summons, and, taking leave of him, Maria
promised to gratify his curiosity, with respect to herself, the first
opportunity.
CHAPTER 6
Active as love was in the heart of Maria, the story she had just heard
made her thoughts take a wider range. The opening buds of hope closed,
as if they had put forth too early, and the the happiest day of her
life was overcast by the most melancholy reflections. Thinking of
Jemima’s peculiar fate and her own, she was led to consider the
oppressed state of women, and to lament that she had given birth to a
daughter. Sleep fled from her eyelids, while she dwelt on the
wretchedness of unprotected infancy, till sympathy with Jemima changed
to agony, when it seemed probable that her own babe might even now be
in the very state she so forcibly described.
Maria thought, and thought again. Jemima’s humanity had rather been
benumbed than killed, by the keen frost she had to brave at her
entrance into life; an appeal then to her feelings, on this tender
point, surely would not be fruitless; and Maria began to anticipate the
delight it would afford her to gain intelligence of her child. This
project was now the only subject of reflection; and she watched
impatiently for the dawn of day, with that determinate purpose which
generally insures success.
At the usual hour, Jemima brought her breakfast, and a tender note from
Darnford. She ran her eye hastily over it, and her heart calmly hoarded
up the rapture a fresh assurance of affection, affection such as she
wished to inspire, gave her, without diverting her mind a moment from
its design. While Jemima waited to take away the breakfast, Maria
alluded to the reflections, that had haunted her during the night to
the exclusion of sleep. She spoke with energy of Jemima’s unmerited
sufferings, and of the fate of a number of deserted females, placed
within the sweep of a whirlwind, from which it was next to impossible
to escape. Perceiving the effect her conversation produced on the
countenance of her guard, she grasped the arm of Jemima with that
irresistible warmth which defies repulse, exclaiming—“With your heart,
and such dreadful experience, can you lend your aid to deprive my babe
of a mother’s tenderness, a mother’s care? In the name of God, assist
me to snatch her from destruction! Let me but give her an education—let
me but prepare her body and mind to encounter the ills which await her
sex, and I will teach her to consider you as her second mother, and
herself as the prop of your age. Yes, Jemima, look at me—observe me
closely, and read my very soul; you merit a better fate;” she held out
her hand with a firm gesture of assurance; “and I will procure it for
you, as a testimony of my esteem, as well as of my gratitude.”
Jemima had not power to resist this persuasive torrent; and, owning
that the house in which she was confined, was situated on the banks of
the Thames, only a few miles from London, and not on the sea-coast, as
Darnford had supposed, she promised to invent some excuse for her
absence, and go herself to trace the situation, and enquire concerning
the health, of this abandoned daughter. Her manner implied an intention
to do something more, but she seemed unwilling to impart her design;
and Maria, glad to have obtained the main point, thought it best to
leave her to the workings of her own mind; convinced that she had the
power of interesting her still more in favour of herself and child, by
a simple recital of facts.
In the evening, Jemima informed the impatient mother, that on the
morrow she should hasten to town before the family hour of rising, and
received all the information necessary, as a clue to her search. The
“Good night!” Maria uttered was peculiarly solemn and affectionate.
Glad expectation sparkled in her eye; and, for the first time since her
detention, she pronounced the name of her child with pleasureable
fondness; and, with all the garrulity of a nurse, described her first
smile when she recognized her mother. Recollecting herself, a still
kinder “Adieu!” with a “God bless you!”—that seemed to include a
maternal benediction, dismissed Jemima.
The dreary solitude of the ensuing day, lengthened by impatiently
dwelling on the same idea, was intolerably wearisome. She listened for
the sound of a particular clock, which some directions of the wind
allowed her to hear distinctly. She marked the shadow gaining on the
wall; and, twilight thickening into darkness, her breath seemed
oppressed while she anxiously counted nine.—The last sound was a stroke
of despair on her heart; for she expected every moment, without seeing
Jemima, to have her light extinguished by the savage female who
supplied her place. She was even obliged to prepare for bed, restless
as she was, not to disoblige her new attendant. She had been cautioned
not to speak too freely to her; but the caution was needless, her
countenance would still more emphatically have made her shrink back.
Such was the ferocity of manner, conspicuous in every word and gesture
of this hag, that Maria was afraid to enquire, why Jemima, who had
faithfully promised to see her before her door was shut for the night,
came not?—and, when the key turned in the lock, to consign her to a
night of suspence, she felt a degree of anguish which the circumstances
scarcely justified.
Continually on the watch, the shutting of a door, or the sound of a
foot-step, made her start and tremble with apprehension, something like
what she felt, when, at her entrance, dragged along the gallery, she
began to doubt whether she were not surrounded by demons?
Fatigued by an endless rotation of thought and wild alarms, she looked
like a spectre, when Jemima entered in the morning; especially as her
eyes darted out of her head, to read in Jemima’s countenance, almost as
pallid, the intelligence she dared not trust her tongue to demand.
Jemima put down the tea-things, and appeared very busy in arranging the
table. Maria took up a cup with trembling hand, then forcibly
recovering her fortitude, and restraining the convulsive movement which
agitated the muscles of her mouth, she said, “Spare yourself the pain
of preparing me for your information, I adjure you!—My child is dead!”
Jemima solemnly answered, “Yes;” with a look expressive of compassion
and angry emotions. “Leave me,” added Maria, making a fresh effort to
govern her feelings, and hiding her face in her handkerchief, to
conceal her anguish—“It is enough—I know that my babe is no more—I will