Although I have finished the history of the misfortunes that brought me to this place, I yet continue to write, more for the sake of occupying my mind than from any hope that the letter will ever reach my Amelia. It has taken me a whole month to complete my narrative, for so weak was my hand in commencing that I could not manage above half a page a day, though now I can with little weariness fill the best part of one of the thick gilt-edged sheets of paper with which Meer Sinzaun has furnished me. But why make such a business of it? my dear girl will cry. Because, Amelia, I must find something to do, or I believe that the sufferings I endured before coming here, and the apprehensions natural to my present frightful situation, would drive me mad. Meer Sinzaun was wiser than I thought him when he permitted his prisoner to divert herself with pen and ink, for he don’t desire (no more than Lovelace did) to find himself the gaoler of a wretch whose intellects are disordered. Figure to yourself, Amelia, that for near four months, which I have spent in this prison, I have seen no one but Misery and the two or three women belonging to the house, and now and then a gardener or other low-cast person in the distance, without it be that I get sometimes a stolen peep into the street through a small barred window in the upper storey, but only when Misery is absent, for she threatened me with having my one spy-hole bricked up when once she catched me indulging myself with a glimpse of the world. Shamefully though this wicked old woman abused me in the matter of bringing me here, I can’t say but she is civil and respectful enough at most times, making her chief exception when she chances to find me praying. This she appears unable to endure, and makes a point of interrupting me, or of fidgeting about so as to disturb my thoughts. It seems to me that Sinzaun must have threatened her very severely in case I contrived to escape, and that she fears some miracle being wrought by Heaven to assist me. If the poor creature knew how often I have prayed in vain that I might die, sure she would experience no further alarm at the sight of my prayers; but, indeed, she is right enough in imagining that if I should ever effect an escape from this house it must be by means of a miracle.
Do you remember, Amelia, that day when the Rector’s brother came to pay his respects to the gentlewomen at Holly-tree House, and discovered us all sitting round in tears, our needlework neglected, while Mrs Eustacia read aloud to us from the pages of ‘Clarissa’? The good bluff gentleman, you’ll recollect, sat for a while listening, with a snort or a “Pshaw!” at intervals, as though determined not to be moved, but at last, taking advantage of the moment when Mrs Eustacia herself had been forced to remove her spectacles, in order to wipe away the moisture that was gathered on ’em, he cleared his throat, and looking round very fiercely upon us, demanded what the mischief Clarissa meant by secluding herself in an obscure lodging at Hampstead, and thereby increasing the perils of her dangerous situation, instead of seeking out a magistrate at once and throwing herself upon his protection? You’ll remember how we all cried out that the delicacy of her sentiments, her respect for the punctilio of her family, the fear of directing public attention to her own equivocal position, and a dread of finding herself repulsed, would all prevent a female of elegant feelings from taking so bold and resolved a step. “Then I hope for your own sakes, my pretty Misses,” says the good gentleman, “that you’ll none of you ever find yourselves in that poor girl’s situation, or your delicate sentiments will land you in a worse trouble than mere public notice,” and he stumped away with a prodigious determination.
But if he were here now, I think that good man would confess that I have not even Clarissa’s chance of escape allowed me. My dear girl won’t do me the injustice to suppose that I have sat down tamely to submit to any fate my captor may destine for me. No, I have made the circuit of the garden and the roofs which surround it times without number, seeking to discover some unguarded window or door, some outside staircase, or even some broken place that might afford me the means of getting outside my boundaries, but to show you with what lack of success I need only say that Misery don’t even take the pains to follow me, now that she’s satisfied I shan’t throw myself over. She wraps her head in her cloth and falls asleep, taking occasion when she awakes to ask me, in the humblest style in the world, whether I have yet succeeded in finding a cranny to squeeze myself through? But even if I could elude her vigilance and that of the rest, and let myself down over the wall by any means, in what sort of situation should I find myself on the outside, in a country where women of quality never stir out of their own grounds but in a suitable conveyance and surrounded with armed servants? Without friends or money, knowing the language but imperfectly, what could your poor Sylvia do? Sinzaun was right when he said that she might well find herself in a worse captivity than this.
In fine, my dear Miss Turnor, I can’t see the smallest hope of my escaping unless I can obtain some dye with which to stain my skin, and a trustworthy guide who would undertake to procure me the dress of a low-cast female, and convey me to one of the European factories near Cossimbuzar. But how hopeless does it appear to seek for such a person in a city where we Britons are now not only hated, but despised! Nevertheless, in the faint expectation of lighting upon some such charitable soul, I have sought to enter into conversation upon indifferent topics with each of the women of the house at various times, intending to broach my subject by degrees, but they all feign not to understand anything I say. Their stupidity must be assumed, Amelia, for if I spoke Moors as badly as they pretend, how could I make Misery understand me, which she does without the smallest difficulty? The truth is, my dear, that it’s useless to seek to work upon people of this sort without you have money to offer ’em, and that I have not, and they know it. Had I command of sufficient sums, I believe I might be able to buy over even Misery herself, for I have seen her eyes sparkle with avarice when I hinted at the quantity of rupees my friends would pay were I restored to them. But alas! I have not so much as an anna to give her as the earnest of a reward, and Misery is a prudent soul, preferring not to do business save for money down.
But how then do I occupy myself, my Amelia will ask, in a place where there’s no visitors, no diversions, no walking nor riding abroad, and no books? Indeed, my dear, I make the fruitless journeys I have described round the circuit of my prison, I observe the growth of the flowers and sometimes pluck a few, I write to my dear distant friend, and I work with my needle. Perhaps I have no right to say my needle, for you don’t know the odd rules that these people have, all the sewing and embroidering being done, as a general rule, by men. To show you the difficulty I found to obtain this natural and necessary weapon of our sex, I must tell you something about my clothes. When I was first able to leave my bed, Misery had the assurance to bring a complete Persian dress for me to put on. You would have laughed, Amelia, if you had not been in my situation, to picture me wearing first a vest of thin silk, then a little velvet waistcoat ornamented with goldsmith’s work, and a silk petticoat of red and green stripes—the stripes going round the garment, fancy, my dear!—and over all a cloth or veil of silk five or six yards long. Turning away in much displeasure, I bade Misery fetch me my own clothes, which she did with a good deal of grumbling. But alas! though they had been washed while I lay sick, they were so ragged and stained and shrunk that ’twas impossible to put them on.
“You are a Moorwoman now, Beebee,” says the presumptuous Misery, “and of course you’ll wear the Moorish dress.”
“I en’t a Moorwoman, and I won’t wear a Moorish dress,” said I, upon which the old woman had the insolence to mutter that since Meer Sinzaun furnished the clothes I might as well wear what he sent.
“On the contrary,” said I, “I’ll have ’em as unlike as possible to those he sent, that so I may forget the humiliation sooner. How dare you, woman, bring me these shocking gaudy colours, when you know I’m lamenting the loss of the most tender and deeply honoured of parents? Fetch me some decent black stuff, and a tailor to make a gown according to my taste, for I won’t wear these things.”
Finding me so angry, Misery became vastly submissive, as is her way when I assert my will, and entreated with tears that I would pardon my slave, for there was no such thing as a black stuff to be had in all Muxadavad, since none of the Indians wear this mournful hue, and that to send to any of the foreign factories for it would cause suspicion that ’twas a European desired so unusual a fabric.
“Very well,” I said, “I en’t unreasonable. You may bring me white or gray or purple, and I’ll wear it, provided the tailor knows his business.”