This is the story I wrote for my Creative Writing Formative Assignment. Was very nervous about it, given that I have to set it in the Victorian period and abide by certain rules given. The story was written based on the documents we were given for this assignment. This is the product:
She My mother used to tell me stories when I was a child. She would sit by my bed and tell me stories with only the candlelight offering warmth and comfort. Most children’s mothers told stories about elves and fairies, princes and princesses. My mother told stories about life, about society, about the proper conduct of the self. I used to say, her stories were ways for her to teach me about being a woman – the right kind of woman.
One story stuck out in my mind, probably because of the cruelness and reality of it. My mother never named the girl involved, unlike her other stories. The only thing I knew about her was that she existed and lived in a village, the very same village I grew up in. I tried to find out everything I could about her after hearing the story, but the villagers were unwilling to talk about her. It was as though she never really existed. Yet, there were documents to prove that she was real. While most villagers wanted to erase the memory of her and the shame she brought them, I wanted to bring her story to the world. I wanted to talk about the harsh societal forces governing our village, the lack of protection available for a woman. My mother told me the story as a warning about what could happen if I were to step out of the boundaries; now I am telling this story to bring to light the cold and repressed world Stourton village, and various parts of England, was.
In 1864, Stourton was thrown into an uproar as a girl was discovered to have given birth to a child. The girl was a young woman of 16, servant to a lady named Mrs. Sutton. Stourton was a highly conservative and deeply religious village. Its residents rarely broke the societal rules for fear of the harsh treatment of the fellow villagers. A simple matter of stealing leads to the thief being ostracized, and if he was unlucky enough to have aristocratic masters, he could whipped badly especially if he was a lowly servant. What one would have to face for a sin of fornication, I shudder to think. The laws may pardon her, but not the village. The sin of fornication was seen as a sin against God, a damnation. A girl who was caught involved in the sin will not only be treated with coldness and suspicion, she will be disowned, with nowhere to go and nobody to turn to. It is as good as the girl being exiled. She would serve as an example and a reminder of what happens if a female were to seduce an innocent male, as Eve seduced Adam. Women are sinners, the church says. Women are the reason why men fall from grace and hence, women must be punished. There is no rule to protect the rights of women in the village of Stourton, only the rights of men. Women then became timid and afraid, always siding with the men, always ready to condemn her fellow sister. No woman in Stourton dared to break its rules.
But I digress. My mother never highlighted how the sexual boundaries of Stourton were in favor of the men. The only thing she mentioned in her story was what happens when a girl is found to be pregnant with an illegitimate child. When that happens, both mother and child would be cast out, treated as the untouchables, ignored and alone. She was not an exception.
In my mind’s eye, she was a rather pretty girl with looks to rival that of the other ladies in Stourton. She had bright brown eyes set in a soft oval face, a pert nose and rosy cheeks. Her lips were soft and luscious; her head full of wonderfully soft brown curls which were often tied up neatly under a plain white cap. She would always be seen dressed in a dull shapeless black gown with a high-neck white collar. In the kitchen, where she could often be found engaged in some form of cooking, she would be wearing a plain white apron over her black dress, her face grim with concentration as she kneaded the dough or carefully prepared dinner for her mistress. The cottage she stayed in was small, cozy and quiet, with only one other maid to help keep the house clean and tidy. Her mistress, Mrs. Sutton, was a kindly and conservative middle-aged woman, plump and motherly, usually dressed in simple dresses. Together, they would form a nice, simple household and no one would suspect that anything unfavorable was taking place.
Nobody knew when she was pregnant. Her dress was loose enough to hide her growing stomach and she made an effort to continue working as though nothing was amiss. At times, when the other maid was busy elsewhere and her mistress was not in the kitchen, she would steal little moments to sit down and rest her aching back, patting her stomach to soothe the active child inside. This went on until one fateful afternoon when she experienced severe pains just after the dinner at one o’clock.
She had barely been able to rest when the doorbell rang. The other maid was engaged with clearing up the dining area, so she had to walk downstairs to answer the door. Soon after returning to her room, the doorbell rang again, and the girl once more had to make her way downstairs. As soon as the visitor was dealt with, her water bag burst and she had to crawl up the stairs, making her way to her room where the baby was born soon after, falling onto the floor before she could make it to her bed. Immediately after the birth, she hurriedly shoved the baby into the utensil and pushed it under her bed before rushing downstairs to answer the door a third time. She did not have the chance to look at her newborn child as the maid was in the room, writing a letter, when she returned.
That night, the moment she was alone, she pulled out her child from under the bed. Her child was dead. It was a girl, a daughter she had longed for. Cuddling the baby in her arms, she cried softly as she regretted that the baby did not have a chance to see the world. She would not know her mother, or her father. She would not know the smell of flowers, of pretty little dresses, of dolls and flurry animals. The voice of Mrs. Sutton talking to the maid snapped her out of her thoughts, and she gently pushed the baby into a box, together with her confinement clothes, locking and placing the box at the foot of her bed. Despite the unfairness of the death of her child, she knew that it was better than having her live. There was no future for an illegitimate child of Stourton, especially if the child was a female. She would be cast out, with no home and barely a family. She would suffer, and it was not fair for the little one to be punished for a sin which she had no part in. It was better if her pregnancy remained undiscovered.
However, she could not resume her once cheerful disposition. She was weak from her pregnancy and struggled to get through her work. She was also grieving for her lost child. Noticing that something was amiss, her mistress decided to call for a doctor. She was afraid that the doctor would notice her recent confinement and pleaded with her mistress to cancel the call. Her mistress refused, worried about her cook’s unusual behavior. There seemed to be an almost wild element in her eyes, a fear in her actions which increased Mrs. Sutton’s concern for her well-being. She was sent to bed, where she stayed until the doctor’s arrival.
The doctor who attended her was Dr. Walter Scott. He questioned her about her ailment, to which she had no answer to. He then carried out an examination of her, and discovered that she had recently delivered a child. Dr. Scott confronted her, but she refused to admit it, fearing for her safety. Stubbornly, she denied his accusations again and again. She finally caved in when Dr. Scott threatened to inform the village of her sin, confessing all that had happened to him. She recounted every single event that had taken place during her confinement, insisting that no one else knew about her pregnancy and the baby. He asked her to show him the child. She was reluctant, but when he threatened to search the entire house for it, she relented and told him about the box. He took the key, opened the box and found the child doubled up inside. Crying, she pleaded with him not to let anybody else know about her secret, to have pity on her for her child is dead, that there was no reason to tell anyone else. But he refused. He left her, broken and sobbing in her room, with strict instructions to her mistress to give her a sleeping draught he prescribed and not to let her leave the room.
She was brought to court a month later, where she was charged for concealing the birth of her child. She was also accused of pleading with the doctor to keep her secret. As the court debated over her fate, the village was in an uproar. The clergy condemned her, saying she was a sinner and had seduced the man. Her punishment, her death, is too disturbing to recount, but I must do so for you to know how harsh the people were to her.
The court dismissed the case as there was insufficient evidence presented to prove that she had deliberately concealed the birth of her child. The court was sympathetic to her plight. Stourton was not. The court’s inability to punish her for her grave mistake spurred on the anger in the people, they felt it was unjust. She had to be punished. She was scorned, treated as an inhuman object. The men sneered and leered at her, the women muttered amongst themselves about her, the children were hidden from her. Whenever she was seen, they would throw stones, rotten vegetables and eggs at her, hitting her with sticks, insulting her. She was scratched and bruised, dirty and bleeding, but they did not care. No, a woman like her did not deserve their sympathy. She had betrayed their trust, stepped out of the finely drawn boundaries. Her friends were now her enemies, her family people she no longer recognized. She was thrown out of Mrs. Sutton’s house unceremoniously, the lady expressing utter horror at her ungratefulness. How is it possible that she dared to do such unspeakable acts around her! It would not do. The village demanded for justice, for her to pay. They would not rest until justice is served.
The next day, the entire village gathered in the village center. The women were whispering furiously amongst themselves, eager to condemn her for her sin. The men were restlessly waiting for her arrival so that they could use their whips, brooms, sticks and any other materials they could find to beat her again. When she finally appeared, dragged along by some of the men, the villagers went wild. She was spat at by everyone she walked past, degraded by the insults thrown at her. The women hurled rotten vegetables, stones and branches at her while the men yelled and surrounded her with their sticks, jabbing at her repeatedly. She flinched as she was stabbed here and there by the sticks, her eyes downcast. She was silent, refusing to react to the commotion surrounding her and to reveal the pain she felt as the villagers banded against her.
“Witch!”
“Whore!”
There was no sympathy for a woman like her. She was thrown onto the ground, hands and feet still bound together. The men seized the opportunity to beat her, repeatedly, until there was no energy left in her to sit up and retain whatever dignity was left of her. She was forced to admit to her sins; they kept hitting her when she refused. Yet she remained silent, defiant, not allowing them to bring her down. This sin was not hers alone.
Hours passed, and the villagers grew impatient. They demanded that justice be served, that the sinner paid dearly for her defiance to God. They demanded for her death, for her to be burnt in hell. Haystacks were carried into the village center, torches were lit. She was to throw herself into the fire, to burn herself alive as punishment. Only then could the village’s fury be appeased. The crowd was in a furor, cheering for her death to come.
Just before she stepped onto the burning hay, she raised her head, turned, and gave the crowd a look of defiance, her lips set in a calm and determined line. They did not frighten her for she had done nothing wrong. As the cheers grew louder, she walked into the burning pit, the flames leaping out at her, leaping up, higher and higher until it seemed like they touched the sky. She screamed in anguish as she was burnt to death. All that was left were her ashes.
“Nothing good comes out of fornication,” my mother would say. “You will take care not to end up like her. There is no sympathy for women like her.”
Still, she would not be named. She was a shame, a dark memory to the people of Stourton. But I refuse to follow them, for if she had sinned, so had the man who had impregnated her. She was the only one known in Stourton to have committed this sin, and she left her mark. She will not remain nameless; her memory will not be in vain.
She was Ann Wilson. This is her story.
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accomplished
stressed
pensive
amused
bouncy
creative
sick
tired