Winefred: A Story of the Chalk Cliffs

by S. Baring-Gould

It is a hard thing for one who has land and home, an income and kindred, to enter into the feeling of desolation and hopelessness that possesses the heart of one who is absolutely adrift in life, without a single attachment, without a single point in the outlook, on which to fix the eye and to which aim.

Jane Marley's life had been broken at an early period—made purposeless by no fault of her own. If she staggered, it was not that her head was light, but that the ground gave way under her feet.

When young, when possessed of the elasticity of youth to carry her forward, and form for herself a future, she had been cruelly wronged. Now she had passed the turn of life, the sap was withdrawing, the forces of her soul were in decline, and her heart became sick at a prospect without an elevation in it—a future that was all cloud.

For herself she felt little concern, her life had been a failure, and to that she submitted. As she knitted and observed the ball of worsted at her feet, she thought that this wool was being used up with a purpose and to a profitable end, whereas the thread of her life had been involved in a hopeless tangle. Winefred was on the verge of womanhood, and promised to be handsome, but this very fact was fraught with danger, and might occasion her ruin, as it had been that of her mother before.

Jane's heart was on fire. She was prepared to do anything, everything in her power to assure to her child a healthy and a happy life, but the means of obtaining this were not available. She had harrowed and cross-harrowed her brain, tearing up all her experiences, searching after what she could not find. She had lived hitherto a precarious existence, tramping over the country, hawking ribbons, pins, needles, tapes, and ballads. On the mean profits she had maintained herself and her child. She had done more. She had been so intent on qualifying Winefred to take a position superior to her own that she had sent her to school, and had kept her there. Was it not, said she, due to her own defective education that she had been unable to retain her husband's affection?

But she had not been able to save money. She had no little store on which to fall back.

She had received offers for Winefred from farmers' wives to take her as a servant; but these she had refused. Partly for a selfish reason, because she could not endure to be separated from her daughter, but also because she did not choose that Winefred, the child of a gentleman, should definitely adopt a menial life in a farmhouse till every chance was gone of placing her in a superior situation. The poor mother could find no gate out of her difficulties.

As her fingers worked, tremulous with the fever of her brain, the thought of the meeting of Winefred with her father rose into prominence. It had been unsatisfactory, in that he had made no promise to the child, he had done nothing for her, save give her a watch, unsuitable to her position, were her position to be one of poverty. But was not this gift an earnest of a purpose to do something more? It was well that he had seen her, for he must have observed that she was educated, and altogether other from what her mother had been.

If only some opportunity were to arise whereby the girl might be lifted to a higher shelf, so as to show J. H. what she really was, what capabilities were in her, what cause he would have to be proud of her, then Jane would be ready to efface herself, or remain far away in the background and in obscurity.