I went to Power, as I have said; and then to Cook and to another woman, Hamer; and then to Selina. She raised her head when she heard my step, and her gaze met my own, over the matron’s dipping shoulder, and her eyes grew bright. I knew then how hard it had been to keep, not just from Millbank, but from her. I felt that little quickening. It was just as I imagine a woman must feel, when the baby within her gives its first kick.
Does it matter if I feel that, that is so small, and silent, and secret?
It didn’t seem to matter, at that moment, in Selina’s cell.
For she was so grateful to have me go to her! She said, ‘You were patient with me, last time, when I was so distracted. And then, when you didn’t come for so long—I know it isn’t long, but it seems terribly long to me, here at Millbank. And when you didn’t come, I thought, perhaps you had changed your mind and meant never to visit again . . .’
I remembered that visit, and how queer and fanciful it had made me. I said she mustn’t think such things as that; and I looked, as I spoke, at the stone cell floor—there were no marks of white upon it now, no trace of wax or grease or even limewash. I said that I had only been obliged to keep away a little. I had been rather occupied, with duties at home.
She nodded, but looked sad. She said that she supposed I had many friends? She could see how I would rather spend my days with them, than go to Millbank.
If she could only know how slow and dull and empty my days are!—as slow as hers. I went to her chair, and sat in it, and put my arm upon her table. I told her that Priscilla had married, and that my mother needed me more at home now she was gone. She looked, and nodded: ‘Your sister married. Is it a good marriage?’—I said it was very good. She said, ‘Then you must be happy for her’—and when I only smiled and wouldn’t answer, she drew a little nearer.
She said, ‘I think, Aurora, that perhaps you envy your sister a little.’
I smiled. I said she was right, that I did envy her. ‘Not,’ I added, ‘because she has a husband, not for that, oh no! But because she has—how can I say it? She has evolved, like one of your spirits. She has moved on. And I am left, more firmly unevolved than ever.’
‘You are like me, then,’ she said. ‘Indeed, you are like all of us at Millbank.’
I said I was. And yet, they had their terms, that would expire . . .
I lowered my eyes, but felt her keep her gaze upon me. She asked me, would I tell her more about my sister? I said she would think me selfish—‘Oh!’ she said at once, ‘I could never think that.’
‘You will. Do you know, I couldn’t bear to look upon my sister as she set off upon her honeymoon. I couldn’t bear to kiss her, or to wish her farewell. That is when I was envious! Oh, I might as well have had vinegar in my veins, then, as blood!’
I hesitated. Still she studied me. And at last she said quietly, that I must not be ashamed to tell my true thoughts there, at Millbank. That there, there were only the stones in the walls to hear me—and herself, who they kept dumb as a stone, and so could tell no-one.
She has said as much to me, before; I never felt the force of it, however, as I did to-day, and when I spoke at last, it was as if the words were pulled from me, that had been tight, inside my breast, upon a thread. I said, ‘My sister has gone, Selina, to Italy; and I was to have travelled there, with my father and—with a friend.’ I have never of course mentioned Helen at Millbank. I said now only that we had planned to go, to Florence and to Rome; that Pa had meant to study in the archives and the galleries there, and that my friend and I had meant to help him. I told her that Italy had become a kind of mania with me, a kind of emblem. ‘We meant to make the trip before Priscilla married, so that my mother might not be left alone. Now Priscilla is married. She has gone there, with not a thought for all my careful plans. And I—’
I have not wept in many months but, to my horror and my shame, I found myself near weeping now, and I twisted away from her, towards the bubbling limewashed wall. When I turned to her again I found her closer than ever. She had lowered herself at the side of the table and rested with her arms upon it, her chin upon her wrists.
She said that I was very brave—the same thing Helen said, a week ago. Hearing it again, I almost laughed. Brave! I said. Brave, to bear my own complaining self! When I would rather lose that self—but cannot, could not, was forbidden even that—
‘Brave,’ she said again, shaking her head, ‘to have brought yourself here, to Millbank, to all of us that wait for you . . .’
She was close to me, and the cell was chill. I felt the warmth of her, the life of her. But now, keeping her eyes upon me, she rose and stretched. ‘Your sister,’ she said, ‘that you’re so envious of. What do you have to envy, really? What has she done, that is so marvellous? You think she has evolved—but is it that? To have done what everyone does? She has only moved to more of the same. How clever is that?’
I thought of Pris—who has always, like Stephen, favoured Mother, while I resemble Pa. I imagined her in twenty years, scolding her daughters.
But people, I said, do not want cleverness—not in women, at least. I said, ‘Women are bred to do more of the same—that is their function. It is only ladies like me that throw the system out, make it stagger—’
She said then that, it was doing the same thing always that kept us ‘bound to the earth’; that we were made to rise from it, but would never do that until we changed. As for women and men, she said—well, that was the first thing that must be cast off.
I did not understand her. She smiled. ‘When we rise,’ she said, ‘do you think we take our earth-features with us? It is only new, bewildered spirits that look about them for the things of the flesh. When guides come to them, the spirits gaze at them and don’t know how to talk to them—they say “Are you a man, or a lady?” But the guides are neither, and both; and the spirits are neither, and both. It is only when they have understood that, that they are ready to be taken higher.’
I tried to imagine the world she spoke of—the world she says has Pa in it. I imagined Pa, unclothed and sexless, and with myself beside him.—It was a terrible vision, that made me sweat.
No, I said. It meant nothing, what she was saying. It could not be true. How could it be? It would be chaos!
‘It would be freedom.’
It would be a world without distinction. It would be a world without love.
‘It is a world that is made of love. Did you think there is only the kind of love your sister knows for her husband? Did you think there must be here, a man with whiskers, and over here, a lady in a gown? Haven’t I said, there are no whiskers and gowns where spirits are? And what will your sister do if her husband should die, and she should take another? Who will she fly to then, when she has crossed the spheres? For she will fly to someone, we will all fly to someone, we will all return to that piece of shining matter from which our souls were torn with another, two halves of the same. It may be that the husband your sister has now has that other soul, that has the affinity with her soul—I hope it is. But it may be the next man she takes, or it may be neither. It may be someone she would never think to look to on the earth, someone kept from her by some false boundary . . .’
It strikes me now, what an extraordinary conversation this was for us to be having—with the gate fastened on us and Mrs Jelf patrolling by it, and the coughs and grumbles and sighs of three hundred women all about us, and the rattling of bolts and keys. But with Selina’s green eyes upon me, I did not think of it. I looked only at her, heard her voice only; and when I spoke at last, it was to ask her this: ‘How will a person know, Selina, when the soul that has the affinity with hers is near it?’
She answered, ‘She will know. Does she look for air, before she breathes it? This love will be guided to her; and when it comes, she will know. And she will do anything to keep that love about her, then. Because to lose it will be like a death to her.’
She still kept her eyes upon me—now, however, I saw her gaze grow strange. S
he looked at me, as if she did not know me. Then she turned from me, as if she had shown me too much of herself, and was ashamed.
I looked again at the floor of her cell, for that smear of wax.—There was nothing.
20 November 1874
Another letter to-day from Priscilla and Arthur—this one from Italy, from Piacenza. When I told Selina, she made me repeat the name to her three or four times: ‘Piacenza, Piacenza . . .’—and she smiled to hear me say it. She said, ‘It might be a word from a piece of poetry.’
I told her then that I had often used to think the same. I told her how, when Pa was alive, I would lie awake and, instead of saying prayers or verses, I would count off all the towns of Italy—Verona, Reggio, Rimini, Como, Parma, Piacenza, Cosenza, Milan . . . I said I had spent many hours, thinking of how it would be when I saw those places.
She said, that I might of course see them still.
I smiled. ‘I should think—not.’
‘But you have years and years,’ she said, ‘to go to Italy in!’
I said, ‘Perhaps. But not, you know, as I was then.’
‘As you are now, Aurora,’ she said. ‘Or as you might be, soon.’
And she held my gaze, until I looked away.
Then she asked me, what was it anyway about Italy that I admired so very much? and I said at once, ‘Oh, Italy! I think Italy must be the most perfect place on earth . . .’ I said she must imagine how it has been for me, to have spent so many years helping my father with his work; to have seen all the marvellous paintings and statues of Italy, in books, and prints—in blacks and whites and greys, and muddy crimsons. ‘But to visit the Uffizi, and the Vatican,’ I said, ‘to step into any simple country church with a fresco in it—I think that would be, to step into colour and light!’ I told her about the house in Florence, on the Via Ghibellina, where one may visit the rooms of Michelangelo, and see his slippers and his cane, the cabinet he wrote in. Imagine, I said, seeing such a thing as that! Imagine seeing the tomb of Dante, in Ravenna. Imagine the days, that were long and warm all the year round. Imagine every corner with a fountain at it, and boughs of orange-blossom—imagine the streets, filled with the scent of orange-blossom, where ours were filled with fogs! ‘The people there, they are easy and frank. Englishwomen may walk freely, I think, about the streets there—quite freely. Imagine how the seas must sparkle! Why, imagine Venice: a city so much a part of the sea you must hire a boat to take you across it . . .’
I spoke on—until I became conscious all at once of my own voice, and of how she stood listening, smiling at my pleasure. Her face was half-turned to the window, and the light that fell upon it made its sharp, asymmetrical lines seem very fine. I remembered the sensation with which I had studied her first, and how she had reminded me of the Crivelli Veritas—and the memory I suppose made my expression change, for now she asked me, Why had I fallen silent? What was I thinking of?
I said that I was thinking of a gallery at Florence, and a painting that hangs in it.
A painting I hoped to study, she asked me, with my father and my friend?
I said, no, it was a painting that meant nothing to me when I made those plans . . .
She frowned, not understanding; and when I would say no more she shook her head, and then she laughed.
She must be careful not to laugh, next time. When Mrs Jelf had released me, and I had gone down through the wards and reached the gate that leads from the women’s prison to the men’s, I heard my name called; and I looked round to see Miss Haxby approaching, her face rather stiff. I had not seen her since my visit with her to the punishment cell; I remembered how I had clutched at her in the darkness then, and I felt myself colour. She asked me, Did I have a moment I might spare her?—and when I nodded, she dismissed the matron who had escorted me, and led me through the gate, and corridors beyond, herself.
‘How are you, Miss Prior?’ she began. ‘We were brought together so unfortunately last time, I did not have the opportunity to discuss your progress with you. You must think me very slack.’ She said that the fact was, she had trusted her matrons with the care of me, and had had reports from them—‘and in particular, from my deputy Miss Ridley’—which suggested that I had managed well enough without her help.
It had never occurred to me before that I might be the subject of ‘reports’, or of any kind of exchange, between Miss Haxby and her staff. I thought of the great dark Character Book that she keeps upon her desk. I wonder if she has a special section there, marked ‘Lady Visitors’.
What I said, however, was that her matrons had all been most helpful to me, and most kind. We paused, while a warden unfastened a gate for us—of course, her ring of keys is useless there, on the men’s wards.
Then she asked me, How did I find the women? She said that one or two of them—Ellen Power, Mary Ann Cook—always spoke kindly of me to her. She said, ‘You have made friends of them, I think! They will feel the worth of that. For if a lady takes an interest in them then it will encourage them, of course, to take an interest in themselves.’
I said I hoped so. She glanced at me, then looked away. Of course, she said, there was always a danger that such a friendship would mislead a prisoner—would cause her to take too much interest in herself. ‘Our women are required to spend many solitary hours, and this sometimes makes their fancies rather keen. A lady comes, she calls a woman “friend”, she returns to her own world—the woman sees nothing of that, of course.’ She hoped I could appreciate the dangers of it. I thought I could. She said that such things were sometimes easier to know than to act on . . .
‘I do wonder,’ she said at last, ‘whether your interest in some of our prisoners mightn’t be a little more—specific—than it ought to be.’
I think I slowed my step for a second; and then I walked on, a little faster than before. Of course, I knew who she meant—I knew it at once. But I asked, ‘In which prisoners, Miss Haxby?’
She answered: ‘In one prisoner, Miss Prior, in particular.’
I did not look at her. I said, ‘You mean, I suppose, Selina Dawes?’
She nodded. She said the matrons had told her I spend the main part of my visits in Dawes’s cell.
Miss Ridley has told you, I thought bitterly. I thought, Of course they will do this to her. They have taken her hair from her, and her ordinary clothes. They make her sweat into a filthy prison gown, they make her fine hands rough with useless labour—of course they will seek to take from her the scraps of comfort and relief she has grown used to having now from me. And again I remembered her as I had seen her first, holding a violet in her hands. I had understood—even then, I had understood—that, had they found that flower about her, they would have taken it and crushed it. Just so did they want to crush our friendship, now. It was against the rules.
I knew better, of course, than to let my bitterness show. I said the truth was, I had taken a special interest in Dawes’s case; and I thought it was a common practice, for Lady Visitors to take notice of certain prisoners, individually. Miss Haxby said it was. She said that ladies had helped many of her girls—had helped them at last to places suited to their station, had led them to new lives, away from their shame, away from their old influences, away from England itself sometimes, to marriage, in the Colonies.
She fixed her sharp eyes on me and asked, Did I perhaps have a plan like this, for Selina Dawes?
I told her that I have no plans at all for Selina. That I seek only to bring her the little comfort that she needs. ‘You must have seen this,’ I said, ‘you, who know her history. You must have guessed, how particular her circumstances are.’ I said that she was not a girl that might be set up as a lady’s maid. She was thoughtful and feeling—almost a lady, indeed, herself. ‘I think the rigours of prison life tell on her,’ I said, ‘more than on the other women.’
‘You have brought your own ideas with you into the gaol,’ Miss Haxby said, after a moment. ‘But our ways at Millbank—as you can see—are rather narrow ones.’ She s
miled, for we had now entered a passage-way that obliged us to draw in our skirts a little and step one before the other. She said that there were no distinctions to be made there, save those they thought it best to make, as officers, and Dawes had all the benefits of those already. She said that, if I continued in marking one girl out for special attention, I would make her less contented with her lot, not more so; and I would finish by discontenting the other prisoners with theirs.
She said, in short, that it would oblige her and her staff if, in the future, I would visit Dawes less, and keep my visits rather briefer.
I turned my gaze from her. The bitterness I had felt at first had begun to turn now to a kind of fear. I remembered how Selina had laughed: she had never smiled, when I first went to her, she had only been sullen and sad. I remembered how she said that she looked forward to my visits, and was sorry when I did not come, because the Millbank hours were so slow. I thought, If they stop me seeing her now, they might as well take her to the darks, and leave her!
There was a part of me, too, that thought, They might as well take me there.
I did not want Miss Haxby to know that I thought that. But she still seemed to study me, and now—we had reached the gate of Pentagon One—now I saw the warder, also eyeing me a little curiously, and I felt my cheek burn redder. I put my hands before me and clasped them tight; and then I heard a footstep in the passage-way behind us, and turned to look at it. It was Mr Shillitoe. He called my name. How lucky it was, he said, that he had met me! He nodded to Miss Haxby, then took my hand. He said, How were the visits progressing?
I said, ‘The visits are progressing just as well as I could wish’—my voice, after all, was very steady. ‘Miss Haxby has been cautioning me, however.’—‘Ah,’ he said.