Discipline

by Mary Brunton

From the stupor of despair, I was roused by the entrance of the stranger who had before intruded. In the jealous reserve of an anguish too mighty to be profaned by exposure, I rose from my dejected posture; and, with frozen steadiness, enquired, 'what new indignity I had now to bear?' The stranger, awed as it seemed by something in my look and manner, informed me, not without respectful hesitation, that he was commissioned by the creditors to tell me I know not what of forms and rights, of willingness to allow me all reasonable accommodation, and such property as I might justly claim, and to remind me of the propriety of appointing a friend to watch over my further interests. One word only of the speech was fitted to arrest my attention. 'Friend!' I repeated, with a smile such as wrings the heart more than floods of womanly tears. 'Any one may do the office of a friend! Ay, even one of those kindly souls who drove my father to desperation,—who refused him the poor boon of delay, when delay might have retrieved all! Any of them can insult and renounce me. This is the modern office of a friend, is it not?'

The stranger, gazing on me with astonishment, proceeded to request, that I would name an early day for removing from my present habitation; since the creditors only waited for my departure, to dismiss the servants, and to bring my father's house, with all that it contained, to public sale. He added, that he was commissioned by them to present me with a small sum for my immediate occasions.

To be thus forcibly expelled from the home, where, till now, I could command; to be offered as an alms a pittance from funds which I had considered as my hereditary right; to be driven forth to the cold world with all my wounds yet bleeding, stung me as instances of severe injustice and oppression. My spirit, sore with recent injury, writhed under the rude touch. Already goaded almost to frenzy, I told the stranger, that 'had I recollected the rights of his employers, I would not have owed the shelter even of a single night to those whose barbarous exactions had destroyed my father; nor would I ever be indebted to their charity, so long as the humanity of the laws would bestow a little earth to cover me.'

I pulled the bell violently, and gave orders that a hackney-coach should be procured for me. It came almost immediately; and, without uttering another word,—without raising my eyes,—without one expression of feeling, except the convulsive shudderings of my frame, and the cold drops that stood upon my forehead, I passed the apartment where my father perished,—the spot where my mother poured upon me her last blessing,—and cast myself upon the wide world without a friend or home.

I ordered the carriage to an obscure street in the city; a narrow, dark, and airless lane. I had once in my life been obliged to pass through it, and it had impressed my mind as a scene of all that is dismal in poverty and confinement. This very impression made me now choose it for my abode; and I felt a strange and dreary satisfaction in adding this consummation to the horrors of my fate. As the carriage proceeded, I became sensible to the extreme disorder of my frame. Noise and motion were torture to nerves already in the highest state of irritation. Fever throbbed in every vein, and red flashes of light seemed to glare before my heavy eyes. A hope stole upon my mind that all was near a close. I felt a gloomy satisfaction in the thought, that surely my death would reach the heart of my false friend; that surely when she knew that I had found refuge in the grave from calumny and unkindness, she would wish that she had spared me the deadly pang; and would lament that she had doubled the burden which weighed me to the earth.

When the carriage reached the place of its destination, the coachman again applied to me for instructions; and I directed him to stop at any house where lodgings could be obtained. After several ineffectual enquiries, he drew up to the door of a miserable shop, where he was told that a single room was to be hired. 'Would you please to look into my little place yourself, madam?' said a decent-looking woman, who advanced to meet me. 'It is clean, though it be small, and I should be very happy that it would suit.'

'Any thing will suit me,' answered I.

'You, ma'am!' cried the woman in a tone of extreme surprise; then placing herself just opposite to me, she seemed hesitating whether or not she should allow me to pass. Indeed the contrast of my appearance with the accommodation which I sought might well have awakened suspicion. My mourning, in the choice of which I had taken no share, was in material the most expensive, and in form of the highest fashion. The wildness of despair was probably impressed on my countenance; and my tall figure, lately so light and so elastic, bent under sickness and dejection. The woman surveyed me with a curiosity, which in better days I would have ill endured; but perceiving me ready to sink to the ground, she relaxed her scrutiny, while she offered me a seat, which I eagerly accepted. She then went to the door, upon pretence of desiring the coachman to wait till I should ascertain whether her lodgings were such as I approved; and they entered on a conversation in which I heard my own name repeated. When she returned to me, she poured forth a torrent of words, the meaning of which I was unable to follow, but which seemed intended to apologise for some suspicion. Never imagining that my character could be the cause of hesitation, I fancied that the poor woman doubted of my ability to pay for my accommodation; and drawing out my purse, I put into her hands all that remained of an affluence which had so lately been the envy of thousands. 'It is but a little,' said I, 'but it will outlast me.'

I now desired to be shown to my apartment; and laboriously followed my landlady up a steep miserable stair, into a chamber, low, close, and gloomy. In a sort of recess, shaded by a patched curtain of faded chintz, stood a bed, which, only a few days before, no degree of fatigue could have induced me to occupy. Worn out, and heartbroken as I was, I yet recoiled from it for a moment. 'But it matters not,' thought I, 'I shall not occupy it long;' so I laid myself down without undressing, and desired that I might be left alone.

I was now, indeed, alone. In the wilfulness of desperation, I had myself severed the few and slender ties which might still have bound me to mankind; and I felt a sullen pleasure in the thought that my retreat was inscrutable alike to feeble compassion and to idle curiosity. The widow, whose roof afforded my humble shelter, and her daughter, a sickly, ignorant, but industrious creature, at first persecuted me with attentions; vainly trying to bribe, with such delicacies as they could procure, the appetite which turned from all with the loathing of disease. They urged me to send for my friends, and for medical advice. They tried, though ignorant of my real distemper, to soothe me with words of rude comfort. All was in vain. I seldom looked up, or returned any other answer than a faint gesture of impatience; and, weary of my obstinate silence, they at last desisted from their assiduities, nor ever intruded on my solitude, except to bring relief to the parching thirst which consumed me.