Free Song of the Sea Maid by Rebecca Mascull Page A

Owen’s regiment has gone and my chance with it. And would he protect me anyhow? I surmise he would not and would return me to my place here, so it would all be for naught.
    The next visit I say to Susan how I envy the army life and she scolds me: ‘My son’s profession is a terrible beast that will tear at him if it can and pull him to pieces. So far, he remains intact. I pray he stays that way. You are only a child. Until you have your own, and they hand you the babe, and you run your fingers along its limbs to perceive that all is there and all is right and a wave of thanksgiving to God assails you and never leaves you – only then will you understand what the mother of a soldier suffers.’
    But I do not comprehend and ignore her clucking ways. I dream of running away with the army for years to come. It is the idea of escape that is alluring, yet also the thought of living as a boy, as a man, appeals keenly. To escape the strictures of feminine dress and limitations – the narrow and small lives women live in our age – to escape that and be a swaggering man free to follow his own destiny, that is something to covet.
    Once I am deemed fifteen years of age, my female existence catches up with me. I rush to Matron one morning with a great gout of red-brown blood at my thighs.
    ‘Am I dying?’ I gasp.
    ‘No, of course not. You are a woman now. It will occur again from time to time. Perhaps once in a month. Those who eat quite well do bleed more often. Others with bad food and bad lives may not bleed at all. But you are one of the fortunate class. When it comes, it will last some four or five days and you must wipe it on your shift so that it does not soil your shoes, or my floor.’
    Matron explains to me the hidden purpose of this bleeding. In my study of animals, I know of course the process of reproduction, the roles played by the female and the male. But I had no thought it need be accompanied by this gruesome bloodletting each month. I am certain female mice and frogs do not bleed thus. Or insects, though they may be too small to tell. Is it only humans who suffer this flux, only women?
    ‘Stop daydreaming, Dawnay!’ chides Matron. She then proceeds to speak of boys and men and their base desires for such a young woman as me. I have no interest in their cravings and tell her so. Not in that way. Only as specimens to study.
    ‘But it is essential you know how to tell a good man from bad. You must think on finding a husband soon, Dawnay, or you’ll be sent away for service before long. The founder mentions your continued presence with disdain. Most of our charges are long gone into apprenticeship by this age, as you know.’
    ‘But I do not wish for a husband. For he will bring forth children and I have no wish for those either. How will I study with a baby at my breast?’
    ‘Such talk is unnatural. And what choice do you have anyway? If you will not when you may, when you will you shall have nay. Marry soon or you’ll be a mop-squeezer ere the year is out. And I fear such work will drive you mad, my dear, with your busy mind. A good husband might be kind and let you read a book from time to time.’
    My tutor and I discuss it, how I can possibly continue my education when my fate falls one way or the other in the direction of service or marriage. He says he will think on it. But no further ideas are forthcoming. I begin to formulate my own plan, but keep it to myself for the moment.
    I am called by my benefactor to his withdrawing room one summer afternoon, just before I am due to walk back to the asylum with my teacher.
    ‘The orphanage has done its work by you and asserts you must find a position.’
    ‘I know it, sir. And I have a proposition for you. This house is run admirably by your housekeeper Mrs Sturgis, your valet Mr Sturgis, and of course Susan … I mean, Mrs Applebee, your cook. But you have no permanent maidservant, sir. Just the girl who comes and goes, and is often run off her feet with