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 hear the particulars when I am"--calmer, she could
not utter; and Jemima, without importuning her by idle attempts to console her,
left the room.
Plunged in the deepest melancholy, she would not admit Darnford's
visits; and such is the force of early associations even on strong minds, that,
for a while, she indulged the superstitious notion that she was justly punished
by the death of her child, for having for an instant ceased to regret her loss.
Two or three letters from Darnford, full of soothing,
manly tenderness, only added poignancy to these accusing emotions; yet the
passionate style in which he expressed, what he termed the first and fondest
wish of his heart, "that his affection might make her some amends for the
cruelty and injustice she had endured," inspired a sentiment of gratitude
to heaven; and her eyes filled with delicious tears, when, at the conclusion of
his letter, wishing to supply the place of her unworthy relations, whose want
of principle he execrated, he assured her, calling her his dearest girl,
"that it should henceforth be the business of his life to make her
happy."
He begged, in a note sent the following morning, to be permitted to see
her, when his presence would be no intrusion on her grief, and so earnestly intreated to be allowed, according to promise, to beguile
the tedious moments of absence, by dwelling on the events of her past life, that
she sent him the memoirs which had been written for her daughter, promising
Jemima the perusal as soon as he returned them.