To Fly

Every evening I watch the pigeons flutter to their nests in my home’s eaves. Sometimes, when I open the window, I can hear their wings rustling.1

I wish I were a bird. In a bird’s world there are no differences between male and female, merit the only measure of worth. Humans are as different from birds as Heaven from Earth.2

As soon as I could understand the words Mother told me the hard truth: that women are confined, sworn into an inescapable, dishonourable servitude. When I was young I only half-believed it; my father has always seemed perfectly fair to me, though he would grumble when Mother gave me lessons in letters and numbers.3

Now I believe that Mother was right; and I have lost all trust in my father.4

A few months ago I was told that Mother had gone on a short holiday. A week into the so-called holiday, my father informed me that she had been taken seriously ill, and was dead. At first I cried; but then I realised that there was no funeral, nor an obituary, and the servants appeared discomfited rather than grieved. My father took a mistress not a fortnight after her death; not the actions of a man whose wife has recently died. And the lessons in what he called “unladylike pursuits”, and Mother “the tools to power”, ceased.5

My suspicions were confirmed when Sarah, my favourite maid, told me that Mother was indeed alive, living in another city; but no longer permitted to see me. I was never informed of her address, and if she wrote to me, I never received her letters.6

My father had removed from me both the better half of my education and the better half of my parentage.7

I used to seek him out; but now I avoid him, and am coolly polite when I must speak to him. He suspects that I know something of his treachery, but I am evasive when he questions me. Sarah is admirably silent, and controls her face perfectly.8

Despite my father’s wishes, I am determined to learn to read, to write, and to count. Sarah is an invaluable assistance, acquiring the necessary implements and providing support when I most need it. She knows a little, and is learning more from her brother; she helps me when I am stuck, and fends off melancholia when I work into freezing winter nights.9

Despite this education, I pay mind to my dress and carriage, practicing conversation on the dullards my father deems friends, and keeping up with my studies in housewifery and music. Mother always told me that to succeed in a man’s world, you must be as a man; but I do not agree. I believe that men will never relinquish power to women, however manly we become: women must wield power through men, manipulating them with pretty words and a dazzling smile. In a man’s world, I must control men to wield power. But I must also understand them; and I can do that only through learning the secrets of words and numbers.10

Last night I was continuing that learning with Sarah, listening to the pigeons settling down for the night as my pen stuttered across the page. We studied as usual, reading aloud to each other from our book, Gobbolino, before copying a few passages and doing some mathematical exercises from the textbook Sarah had coerced her brother into buying for us.11

When the lesson finished Sarah bid me goodnight and left the room, leaving me alone until our next lesson. Dear Sarah; she is my life now that Mother has gone. Without her I believe I would shrivel and die; for her I would sacrifice…anything short of my life.12

I was gazing distractedly at the pigeons, thinking about how free they are and how confined I am, when I heard a thud, and a slight cry, from outside.13

“Sarah?” I called quietly, panic fluttering in my breast. Quickly I got up, and ran to the door.14

The first thing I saw was Sarah sprawled on the floor, blood leaking from her temples.15

For a heartbeat I stood there, shocked, wordless, silently panicking.16

Then I saw my mother.17