University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVII.

I shall be very brief. I am not what I appear. My name
is not Mary; it is Maria—Maria Pey—, but no no, I dare
not, I will not hazard the name of my dear father even to you.
I was born in A—, a village of Staffordshire. I was very
happy sir, and as innocent as a dove, till my poor mother
said to me with a severe look one day that my father and I
were much too proud of my beauty. Of my beauty! and
was I beautiful then! Was I of the few that I never heard
spoken of but with praise, that I never saw approach, but
they were welcomed with joy by my dear father? could it be
so? I will go to him, said I, and ask him before I sleep.
I did go, I went straightway to my father, I got upon his knee,
I crept into his bosom, I hid my face there, and when I had
courage enough to speak—for I was afraid of my mother—
I asked him if I was indeed one of the beautiful. He kissed
me and wept upon my neck, and would have escaped the
question, but I persevered until he was obliged to own that
I was what my mother had reproached me for being, beautiful;
and that he did not love me the less for being so.

Need I say more? I could not sleep; I could not stifle
the joy of my foolish heart. By and by the young men pursued
me and the young women kept away, as if they were
afraid of me. Two or three of my beloved companions forsook
me, one after another, and all began to treat me with a
reserve that made me very unhappy; and when I begged to
know what I had done, they kept away, or spoke to me as if
they no longer loved me; and my good mother, who grew
more and more pious every day, and to make me love piety,

found more and more fault with me, as she grew more and
more pious, till I had no courage left I declare—no heart—no
hope—told me their behavior was owing to the beauty my
father took such pride in—God bless that father! he never
told me a fortieth part as much; and that if I lived to grow
up, I should be hated for my good looks; and that my fine
shape and high stature would be a curse to me. I could
not believe her. I chose to believe my father. Did he not
love them that were beautiful? And did not I? And had he
not acknowledged that he did not love me the less—and why
should they—for my face, or my shape, or my stature?

Poor soul! I do pity you; I foresee the issue of your
story.

Well---my dear mother being a very religious woman
could not bear to see me cheerful. She kept me at home
with her—she kept me busy—she would not suffer me to go
abroad nor even to wear a dress like other people. Her object
was---and she avowed it before my sister Judith, who
belonged to the church, and spoilt her fine dark hair as the
rest of the church did—her object was to humble me, to
break down my spirit, to mortify my pride in every possible
way, to teach me that beauty was a thing to be sorry for and
ashamed of. Nothing else could save me, she thought. She
would preach to me by the hour, when I was tired and sleepy
and anxious to be a-bed where and where only I could forget
my sorrow; and always about something which I never
could understand for my life, or about something which never
appeared to be true, or of any use if it were true. She would
go out of her way, not to shield me, but to expose me to reproof,
and to the reproach and ridicule of those, who even
while they ridiculed me, were serious. All day long I had
some heavy unintelligible book before me, about I never
knew what—I never cared what. I only know that I had

much to read, that I had much to learn whether I would or
no, and that if I failed in my task, or dropped asleep to a
fourth or fifth discourse in the same day, I had a chapter in
the Bible to get by heart, or a page of Hannah More---

I do pity you!

---Or a detestable hymn or two—I love good poetry—over
and above my task for the following day, and that I discovered
what I take to be a truth of a great value.

What was it pray?

This—that what we learn with pain we forget with pleasure.

A discovery indeed—a truth which deserves to be recorded
in marble over the door-way of every place on earth
devoted to education —

Well—at fifteen she charged me with being too free before
the young men of the village. Too free! said I, how
so?—I really did not understand her. I behaved in the
same way to every body; I was not more free with the
young men that I knew, than I was with the young women.
But she made me perceive—I know not how—that young
men were to be regarded with fear, that every young man
was my natural foe. I wanted to ask her why, but I was
afraid—my courage died away within me, at her look—
I was by nature, timid grateful and affectionate—

You timid—you, with your haughty step—

Yes I—I with my haughty step, as timid a creature as ever
breathed. But after this, if a young man spoke to me, or
come near me, I could hardly keep down my heart, or withhold
my tears; and after he had gone away, I could not
sleep sometimes, for the trouble and sore perplexity of my
thought. My mother did not love me---I could see that—
she would neither caress me, nor let me caress her, and I
could not live without being caressed by somebody. My

father knew this and pitied me, and loved me too much I
am afraid, because my mother loved me so little. He was a
retired naval captain, a rough sensible good man, much older
than my mother, on whom he doted until she took to the
church, became a Methodist, and parted her beautiful hair
upon her forehead, in spite of all be could say or do, and
strove to mortify in Judith and me, what he called the proper
spirit of an English woman. Poor Judith! she obeyed
without a word or a murmur, but I could not obey, my nature
was not the nature of Judith, and so I had no peace of my life.
I would carry my head high, for it was natural to me; I
would not stoop, nor drag my feet after me on my way to
church; for it tired me to stoop, and it tired me more to walk
as my mother would have me walk. And yet, I did not
know that my carriage was haughty nor my step free.

For a long while my father used to bring with him a heap of
clothes and trinkets, whenever he returned from a voyage, and
a multitude of things that I never knew what to do with, after
we became religious. And long after I had grown up, he
always had me on his knee, rigged out in some costly garb
or other of which we never knew the value, with my head
upon his shoulder, my cheek to his, and my arms about his
neck. I loved him with a love that no language can describe—but
I loved him like a child and without knowing
why. It was the instinct of my nature to love and I had nobody
else to love—nothing else on earth to love, not so much
as a bird, or a tree, or a flower.

I know not why it is—it may be because my dear father
was always kinder and gentler to me than my mother—it
may be because I never yet received much kindness from
any body in the shape of a woman, but so it is, that from my
childhood up, the kindness of a man has always been very
powerful with me---so powerful, that if he was a great or

a good man, touched with sorrow or bowed with grief, and I
saw the water stand in his eyes, or heard him speak with
great gentleness and gravity, though we were strangers to
each other, I have been ready to fall upon his neck and weep
there, as I would upon the neck of my own father.

I have been told that when I was a baby, I would not suffer
a woman to take me—but that I would go to a man with
a cry of joy, and that my father could put me to sleep at any
time in a few minutes; nay, that for a frolic, it was common
to deceive me by putting a hat upon the head of a
woman, without which I would never go to one if I could help
it. I mention this to you sir, because I have been twitted
with it a hundred times in a week I dare say by my poor
mother, who teased me and worried me about such things till
I grew miserable, nay Sir---till I was made to understand
many things that I ought never to have understood.

As long ago as I can remember—you will forgive my rambling
I hope; I am doing now what I never did before, and
you must give shape to the story—I began to dislike the society
of my own sex, whether married or single, and whatever
might be their age. They were always lying about me,
or to me, or teasing me with speeches about some young man
or other, till I was ready to cry for vexation; yet I had always
a dear friend or two till I grew up to the stature of womanhood—after
which I never could find either a play-fellow
or a dear friend among women.

I have attributed all this to envy, and the more, because
to tell you the truth, I have always found the bitterest reproof
and the most unpalatable advice to proceed from neglected
women—ladies of a certain age, or as I should say, of a very
un-certain age. The men have always treated me kindly,
and the very boys that I knew, were all sweet-tempered, and
gentle, and obliging to me. What wonder if I disliked girls

and women who were never so? The older I grew, the
stronger grew my preference for the society of men. I took
no pleasure in the society or the occupations of women. I
despised both—and I had not wit enough nor wisdom enough
to conceal it. Of course they hated me—and of course they
slandered me. As I grew up, I discovered that most of the
men were fools, or knaves—

Goodness me! thought I—we have no such milk-and-water
to deal with here, as I have been prepared for.

—But even their gossip was more tolerable than the best
of what I heard from the she-people about me. I had many
offers of marriage, but I refused them all—I had no idea that
I ever should marry, I could not imagine it possible, when I
came to know what would be expected of me in marriage.
Why should I give up my liberty—the little I have now—
I used to say to myself, twenty times in the course of the day.
Why become a slave? Why give up the power I possess over all
the men that approach me? If it be true that I am deceived
by those, who appear to be so gentle and so good, why seek
to be undeceived—and why by an experiment so costly as
marriage? From that, if I should be deceived, there will be
no escape. In a word—why leave my dear, dear father, I
used to say to myself; I do not want to be married---I do not
want a bed-fellow; or if I do, there is Judith; I never could
bear to sleep with a man—sir!

Madam!

Did you smile?

Smile—no indeed!

What I say to you is the truth—

I am sure of it. Smile—no madam, it were much easier
to weep.

But if you are like other men, it will appear very strange
to you—the simplicity I speak of, at my age---perhaps incredible.

Far from it.

You are not like other men; you appear to have a truer,
if not a deeper knowledge of the human heart.

Not of the human heart—excuse me, but I have a knowled
of woman's heart, which if it be not a deeper and a truer
knowledge than is common, really deserves to be so, for it
makes all you say appear very credible to me.

A proof that your knowledge of woman, whatever it may
be, has been gathered from high and pure sources.

Not altogether madam, I do not say that,—but while women
are educated as they are, every thing is credible to me
which goes to show that they have been turned over to their
husbands by their foolish mothers, in a pitiable state of delusion;
that up to the day of her marriage, a woman, otherwise
well educated, may be nothing more than a great green girl—
a great baby.

Well sir, after a time, the lovers that I refused—contrary
to what I expected of them---for they taught me by their
words when the affair came to issue, that to refuse a lover
was to make a friend for life, to secure a brother who would
give up every pursuit in life to watch over you, a sort of
guardian angel who would never, never forget you, nor cease
to love you—they went over to the side of my she-foes one
by one, where if they did not mock me, nor lie about me,
they suffered me to be called a coquette. I did not know
the meaning of the word for a great while; but when I did,
I was rather gratified than otherwise; for why reproach a
woman with seeking to be loved?

With seeking to be loved so innocently too---

Yes. By and by, my mother told me to beware—that I
was getting a bad name. Wife! said my father---starting up
out of his chair—wife! Never shall I forget his look. Oh said
I, a coquette I suppose, or a proud vain girl, or a flirt? No

Miss Maria, said my mother. Wife—wife—repeated he,
you know how much I love you; you know that I am faithful
in whatever I once undertake; you know that I married you
in spite of the changes I saw, when after twelve years of separation,
I got back and found you, a sister-of-the-church, as
you call it, a bride to your Saviour—nay nay, I will not be
interrupted. You know me—explain the speech, I have
just heard. Be quick, and observe what I say—you know
whether I am likely to be as good as my word; if I ever
hear you call Maria, Miss Maria again, as you did just now,
we are no longer man and wife. My mother was terrified.
Speak—speak wife—what is the bad name they give her?

They call her the lady now—Lady Maria.

So much the better, said he; and who cares, thought I. So
much the better—she is a lady; nay wife, she is more, she is
what few ladies are, she is a gentlewoman by nature. Do
what she will, say what she will, she has always the look of a
gentlewoman. Here Maria—here; give me a kiss. I obeyed.
There wife, said he—there; show me another woman able
to do that! able to receive a kiss without looking as if she did
not deserve it, or as if it were a thing not to be proud of.
For shame Robert, for shame! said my mother, as he drew
her up to him and kissed her with a quivering lip, and held
her to his heart, and whispered something to her which made
her smile, in spite of her determination to be serious.

From that hour I began to take pleasure in the idea of
being called Lady Maria, and a sort of childish delight in the
display of my finery, though I was never permitted to go
abroad with it, even by piecemeal. To prove that I knew
how to sit like a gentlewoman too, I would loll on the sofa by
the hour together, when I could get by myself; or sit on my
father's knee with a great India shawl about me, and half my
rich wardrobe on my back, when my poor mother was away.

At last however she caught me parading a large desolate
room in cold weather, with a slow step, as if I were marching
to music. I do not know what possessed me; but the
truth is, that she found me there quite by myself and blue
with the cold, rigged out in all that I could contrive to get on,
of the heaps of outlandish dresses that my father had brought
from the sea, and the isles of the sea. I knew not which
way to look, and she verily thought me mad, I am sure. I
was the first to recover, and I tried to steal away, but she
caught me, and rung the bell, and would have proceeded to
strip me before all the servants I do believe, had I not recollected
myself in time to say--Mother, you have called me Miss
Maria again—if you do not suffer me to go quietly away,
my father shall know it, before I sleep, whatever be the consequences!
I had no time to consider what I should say—I was
half mad with vexation, desperate with fear and shame—I
hardly knew what I did say, till I saw my proud mother stop,
and turn pale as if I had struck her to the heart, and throw up
her arms with a feeble cry, and fall with her whole length
upon the floor. I was terrified to death at first; I screamed
for help---I knew not what I had said, nor what I had
done, till I saw her move, when I gave her in charge to Judith,
and escaped to my room where I tore off the finery I was
loaded with, and made a vow never to wear it again; but I
felt as if in some way or other I had been guilty of parricide.

She never forgave me I am sure, though I went down on
my knees to her the next day, after watching at her chamber-door
all night, and tried every way in my power to persuade
her that I had no meaning in what I said. No—no—she
never forgave me. But the spell of authority was broken
for ever. I found I had within me a courage that I had never
dreamed of, a brave something which had never been visible
before.

By and by too I discovered the meaning of her speech—
I heard her call a woman of no character Miss. Oh what a bitter
day that was to me! and what a long, long night! I almost
cried my heart out, as I lay in bed hour after hour, unable
to get a wink of sleep, and afraid and ashamed to show
my face even to my dear father. I was truly wretched,
humbled to the very dust, and so penitent sir, that with a
kind word or two my mother might have made me any thing
she desired—even a Methodist. I would have gone to chapel,
I would have dressed any how, I would have worn my
hair any way to please her. But some how or other, in
the midst of my grief, it occurred to me that when my mother
called me Miss Maria, she had said something more about
my innocence. Of my innocence!—that led me to think of
guilt. You wonder at my courage—

I do indeed—

But so it was. Until that hour, as I hope for mercy, I
had no idea of what was intended by the speech of my cruel
mother. I pray you to believe me—I pray you to repeat
my story—it may do much good when I am no more. I remember
my feeling now, as if it were but last night, my consternation—eagerness—and
perplexity. I remember that my
blood thrilled with fear as I lay and meditated on the mystery.
I had heard before of reproach and of dishonor, but I had never
known the true meaning of the words till now, when it came
to me like a flash of light. Can you believe what I say?

Yes—yes—I do believe you.

I was very simple to be sure—I crept under the clothes I
remember, and covered my face; but when I tell you that
my mother used to say, after the birth of a child, that it had
been brought by the nurse, and that I believed her—till I
was almost old enough to be a mother myself, what I say to
you may appear more credible. Yet such is the fact. I

was full thirteen before I had any other idea—and I was full
sixteen before I knew that babies are what they are—a part
of their own mothers—

Well—

I have come to a period of my story now—pray pardon
me—let me try to recollect myself. I—I—I mean to give
you the truth sir, and the whole truth, but you know—I am
sure you do—that—that—she covered her face with her
hands, I saw the tears trickling through her fingers, and I
trembled with apprehension.—Oh sir! believe me, it is more
easy for a proud woman to go astray than to speak of it—

I could hardly get my breath—

About this time Sir, I became acquainted with a middleaged
man, who was a tutor in our neighborhood. He was a
favorite with every body, with my father, my mother, my sister,
and myself. And yet he never appeared anxious for the
good opinion of either. His conversation was unlike that of any
body that I had ever seen at that time. He was thought to be a
man of high birth, and I believe was, though very poor. My
mother was afraid of him, and my father acknowledged one
day that Mr. O—I need not give his name—was quite familiar
with every thing about a ship. Of course he became a
favorite with my dear father, and of course—

A favorite with you, said I.

Yes. But I did not love him—I could not love him—I
was too much afraid of him for that.

I smiled—

Hear me through, before you judge me. Though I did
not love this man, I took a sort of pleasure in his company,
in hearing him talk, and in watching his countenance.—I
would sit before him for half the day, listening to his deep
rich voice, and watching the light and shadow that played in
the depth of his eyes, without hearing one word in five that

he spoke, or understanding what he said, any more than if
he had been conversing in a language I was ignorant of.

What color were they?

I do not know.

Very well—proceed.

I knew not how he got such an ascendency over me;
but I declare to you, that at one time, although I did not love
him, he could have made me do any thing he pleased—

I thought so—

Nay nay, you are angry now; that look is unworthy
of you.

Proceed I beseech you. It is time for me to go; and
your husband will think it very strange if I go without returning
to the company above stairs.

Very true—touching the bell—very true, and I beg you
not to go without returning to them, nor without hearing the
remainder of my story—we are nigh the catastrophe now.

I thought so, I was just going to say,—when a servant appeared.

Go to your master, and say to him that Mr. H. will be
with him in a few minutes.