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Awakenings

By Geoffrey Hart

Previously published as: Hart, G. 2021. Awakenings. Mythic 17:77-83.

There once was a beautiful woman with an inquiring mind that did her little good in the world of the late 19th century. It wasn’t that her intellect went unrecognized; rather, the problem was that it was never appreciated, and most often scorned. Her father, too, chose to deny her opportunities as her thirst for knowledge waxed; her mother had died in childbirth, striving to give her husband a son, and could not intercede on her behalf. The more eagerly the beautiful woman sought learning, the more tightly he constrained her activities. He was a wealthy man, having developed a great many clever and popular patent medicines, some of which actually accomplished the intended effect. Thus, he had ample money to spend on achieving his desires. A few words whispered in appropriate ears foreclosed opportunities for liberties such as an education at one of the many colleges in and around Boston. Yet libraries were even more abundant, and he could not find every one and bribe its managers to exclude his daughter; in fact, many librarians were women, and once his ends became clear, were happy to take his money and ignore his wishes.

Because she was beautiful, with creamy skin and hair that shone like gold, she had many suitors. But to a man, they found her increasingly formidable intellect amusing, horrifying, or intolerable—in short, a deal-breaker. By the time she’d entered her twenties, her father despaired of arranging a suitable marriage for his daughter. One day, he summoned her to his den and bade her sit with him by the fire.

“As you know, daughter, I’m no longer a young man. I’d hoped by now to have grandchildren to inherit the estate I built. It’s therefore time for you to be married, will ye nil ye, so that when I pass, you’ll have a man to care for you and a boy who can inherit.”

She bit back on her reply until she could frame it more civilly. “I’m a modern woman, and can inherit and manage your estate as well as any man.”

“And yet, that shall not come to pass. You must give me a grandson.”

“I shan’t.”

“Many men of good breeding and suitable intellect and moral character could be persuaded to marry you. I’ve offered a dowry large enough to cause them to overlook your obvious defects, and yet it’s proven insufficient.”

“Your machinations have been unsubtle. I’ve met each of your suitable suitors, and found each wanting. And told them so, in no uncertain terms.”

“Your mother, bless her soul, found me wanting. Yet we had, I think, a good marriage.”

Having no memory of her mother, she let that statement pass unchallenged. “And yet, none will have me on my terms, nor I them, on theirs.”

“It’s the latter that gives them pause. You must tame your free spirit before you find a husband. This is not a Shakespearean play, in which one of them will break your will and fit you to the marriage harness.”

“I shall tame nothing. My spirit is all I have that’s mine, and none shall take it from me.”

“You shall have a husband, and shall bend your knee to him and subjugate yourself to his will.”

“I shan’t.”

This conversation was to be repeated many times, in divers forms, in subsequent weeks, until failing health brought the father to deliver his ultimatum: “If you won’t choose someone to comply with, then you shall have a spouse of my choosing.”

“You shall have some work ahead of you persuading him.”

“And yet, if I increase your dowry sufficiently, surely someone will be willing to endure marriage to a shrew.”

“A shrew, is it? For having a mind the equal of my father’s and seeking only to joyously and freely use it?”

“Use that fine mind in the service of a worthy husband. One who will come to appreciate you and may even, however reluctantly, grant you some of the freedom you crave.”

“I shall have no spouse who doesn’t freely and honestly show me the respect owed an equal.”

“Then it seems unlikely you shall have any man that suits you.”

“On this, if naught else, we agree.”

“So be it. We shall see who has the right of it.” And her father stormed from the room, and began writing letters to certain eligible men who’d thus far rejected the slowly increasing dowry, but had given hints they might be vulnerable to stronger economic suasion.

When, moments later, he left the house to post those letters, she entered his laboratory, where he researched and mixed his famous medicines. Not for the first time. Two formulations, in particular, had lured her; in the morning light, one glowed bright magenta and the other cyan. Consulting his pharmacopeia, she confirmed their identities and dosages. In a beaker set above a chafing dish, she mixed equal amounts of the two and stirred until she achieved a color as blue as her eyes. Then, taking a syringe from his desk, she filled it with the mixture. With syringe in hand, she retired to her bedchamber, bringing the maid with her. On a piece of paper, she wrote the names and dosage of her concoction. “See that you give this to my father upon his return.” Then she squeezed the remaining air from the syringe, laid herself beneath the covers with only her arms protruding, and found a vein. Taking a deep breath, she injected the liquid, then pressed a thumb against the wound to halt the bleeding as she withdrew the needle.

“Here I shall lie until my father has passed, and someone more enlightened comes to wake me from my slumber.” The maid caught the syringe as it fell from her hands.

Later that day, when her father returned, he found his daughter seemingly lifeless beside the distraught maid, who had refused to leave her side. Learning what she’d injected, he tried several remedies to awake her over subsequent days, and found them each ineffective. When he’d tried everything his knowledge of medicines suggested, he cursed her and summoned his attorney. Together, they crafted a document that would disinherit her, but would pass his estate to her firstborn son. As to the management of his estate until that happy day arrived, he appointed his butler, an elderly free man of color who had shown impeccable judgment over the years. Not long after the will was complete, the father went to his bed to sleep, and did not wake.

***

There once was a free woman of color who, had it not been for her parents’ heroism fleeing a certain southern plantation, would have been born a slave. Instead, her parents fled north to Boston, aided and abetted by the Underground Railroad, and with help from the local abolitionist community, remained safely beyond reach of the slavetakers who roamed 19th century New England in search of escaped slaves. Sadly, they, and many thousands of others, did not remain safe from the 1885 outbreak of scarlet fever that passed over Boston like the angel of death.

Their daughter, orphaned at a tender age, found a home with help from Harriet Hayden herself, with a good Quaker couple. They raised her as if she were their own daughter, for they had no children of their own. She grew her mind by spending long hours in their capacious library, and grew her body through vigorous exercise. She particularly enjoyed horses, which she rode at break-neck speed, and fencing, which she approached with a glee bordering on the manic. She acquired several attractive scars; her opponents acquired several more, even when they’d been warned to expect no easy victory. As she had no patience for social conventions that served no useful purpose, she wore man’s clothing more often than not, earning herself the derisive and inaccurate sobriquet The Nubian Prince.

Whatever she asked for was hers: ever more books, private tutors for any art that took her fancy, from fencing to finance, and an allowance that gave her considerable freedom. By the time she escaped adolescence, with all its travails, she had become a tall, curvaceous woman who attracted many looks on the street from men, both Black and white. She exercised her freedom by ignoring such tiresome attentions, or sometimes rebutting them more vigorously, occasionally at sword’s point. It was the life of the mind that drew her. There would be plenty of time for love and such distractions later, once she had satisfied her other hungers.

Of all those hungers, the one that drew her agile mind most strongly was the physician’s art. Although a single Black man had, grudgingly, been admitted to the practice of medicine—John DeGrasse had been practicing for more than 30 years by that time—she found no doctor willing to teach her what she needed, no medical school in Boston would admit her, and textbooks could only lead one so far. But she had a formidable intellect, and found a solution, for with her allowance she could pay doctors to attend on her in response to divers pretended illnesses, and as she controlled the payment, she could pressure them to explain what they were doing and why. In this way, she learned what she could not learn of the rudiments of the medical arts from her books.

***

Years went by, and still the first daughter slept, growing slightly thinner by the year, evolving from what most men would have described as pleasingly plump to what was then disapprovingly described as athletically slim. Yet she was dusted regularly by the butler, who also moistened her lips and mouth with the finest mineral water, and was washed occasionally by a nurse brought in specifically for that task. Had she not been eternally asleep, none would have thought anything amiss just by looking at her.

The butler didn’t encourage visitors, but every year, on the anniversary of her slumber, the father’s will insisted that one or more men be granted entry to the house to court his sleeping daughter. Under the watchful eye of the butler, decorum was maintained during these visits. Full of optimism, they would kiss her lips in the hope she‘d awaken. To a man, they failed to evoke any response, let alone waken her. As their failures mounted, the visits became less frequent. After all, there were many live women in need of suitors who’d respond more favorably to a kiss.

***

One morning, while reading the Boston Herald as she lingered over a post-breakfast cup of tea, the would-be doctor came across an article that spoke, with studied derision, of the daughter of a prominent doctor who had lain, apparently in a coma, for more than a decade since her father’s death. Her condition was a mystery that had defeated the most educated doctors in New England, many of whom crossed great distances to solve the mystery. Some came for the challenge, and some for the prize that awaited should they succeed, for the promised dowry went beyond “not inconsiderable” and bordered on “extravagant”. As yet, none had succeeded. The mystery would not, the would-be doctor resolved, defeat her. She spent the next week reviewing what was known of comas, then ensured that her Gladstone bag was well stocked and set out to do battle with this mystery.

Here, we must digress a moment to clarify a point of historical relevance. Think though you may that you know this tale, gentle reader, let me make clear that no tale is ever precisely the same as its spiritual ancestors. No briars with deadly thorns buried the sleeping woman’s mansion in an impenetrable barrier, cluttered with the bones of those who had rashly sought the sleeping woman’s hand, not to mention the sweet demesnes that there adjacent lay, for small values of “adjacent”. Neither did the sleeper repose upon a bier, nor yet was she kept under glass, though that would have eased the task of the butler by eliminating the need to dust quite so carefully. The aforementioned butler had not been cast into a sorcerous slumber to lie at her side through the decade or more of his watch. The mansion did not lie at the heart of a dark and dangerous, wolf-haunted forest; rather, it occupied a place of pride in Tory Row. And despite her nickname, The Nubian Prince left her sword home; she anticipated no need for it on what she hoped would be a simple medical visit. Hers was, after all, a deeply practical soul.

She did, however, honor her nickname in one respect: she arrived at the mansion on horseback, dressed in the finest pants, chemise, and jacket Boston’s haberdashers could provide. The butler, who had continued faithfully warding the sleeping woman, met her at the door. He raised an eyebrow at the horse hitched to the lamp post in front of the house.

“May I be of service, Madame?”

“You may. Show me to the sleeping woman’s chambers. At once, if you would be so kind.”

The butler hesitated a moment, fully prepared to dismiss the visitor. But he could recall no instruction that forbade a woman from visiting, and he felt a certain curiosity. Perhaps more significantly, the visitor was a large and formidable woman, and the look in her eyes was not one that promised a gentle response to any such dismissal. Still, there were formalities to observe.

“And what would be the purpose of your visit?”

“I am here to wake the sleeper.”

“Are you now?” He tried, but failed, to keep the skepticism from his voice.

“I am. Now.”

Conceding the inevitable, he shrugged and opened the door wide to admit her, then closed it behind her and led her to the chamber where the sleeper lay. And he remained, as he would have for any male visitor, driven by duty, of a certainty, but also by curiosity. Also, though he was not young, it was not lost upon him that despite her masculine garb, the visitor was an unusually attractive woman.

The contrast between the two women was striking. Where the sleeper was white and gold, the visitor had skin the color of cinnamon and hair with the color and shine of obsidian, in a great frothing mass piled atop her head. They were like matched queens on an antique, hand-carved chessboard, though this was a very different game.

At the bedside, the visitor gently raised the sleeper’s arm and placed fingers at her wrist. She waited several minutes before gently laying the slender arm back upon the sheets. Next, she cautioned the butler to silence, then placed her head on the sleeper’s chest and listened for an equally lengthy time. At the end of that vigil, she drew an auscultation device from her bag, slipped the earpieces into her ears, and held its bell to the sleeper’s chest. Finally, she pulled mirror from her bag and held it to the sleeper’s lips. She examined it closely, frowning because no moisture had formed on the clear glass, then returned it and the listening instrument to her bag. When she was done, she leaned over the bed, took a deep breath, then placed lush lips on the sleeper’s thinner lips and exhaled long and slowly. As her chest fell, the sleeper’s chest rose, and the sleeper’s brows drew together in puzzlement. The visitor took another deep breath, met the sleeper’s lips, and exhaled deeply again. The sleeper’s brows relaxed, and a faint smile grew on her face, a touch of color returning to her creamy white skin. A third time, the visitor exchanged breath with the sleeper, but this time the sleeper’s eyes opened. Seeing who had come to wake her, her smile widened.

Then she raised a trembling hand from beneath the comforter and brought it to rest on the visitor’s cheek, thumb resting on a cheek bone and slender fingers coming to rest behind an ear. The former sleeper gently pulled her visitor’s head down, and kissed her so long and slowly that the butler grew uncomfortable and, blushing, cleared his throat. Twice. Smiling, the sleeper released her visitor, and the two women gazed into each other’s eyes.

After some few days of recovery, the sleeper proved to have retained a mind as sharp as her father’s. Sharper, in fact, than the lawyer who’d crafted his will. In court, she persuaded a skeptical judge that all that was necessary to satisfy the intent of her father’s will was for her to provide a grandson of her own flesh to inherit the estate. With the help of her lover, who was a skilled doctor of growing repute since her miraculous cure of the sleeper, a suitable man was found and paid well to provide what was necessary—and to maintain a discreet silence about his contribution. Nine months later, the former sleeper was delivered of a male child, who would some day inherit. But in the meantime, the sleeper and her lover maintained a quiet and discreet Boston marriage. And though tongues inevitably wagged, their waggings were disdained by the lovers who, despite the inevitable frictions of any long association, could be said to have lived as happily ever after as any couple.

Of course, real life is no fairy tale and oft continues long after the happily ever after, so there must be a postscript to this story. Years later, when their son came to them to announce that he too had found a suitable partner, there was an awkward moment when that partner proved to be a young Jewish man. That awkwardness was perhaps to be expected, for both women were products of their upbringing and couldn’t be expected to discard its customs overnight. But both partners had formidable intellects, and soon overcame their reservations and embraced their new son-in-law. That couple, too, lived happily thereafter in their own gentleménage, ignoring future wagging tongues with the same élan as their mother and mother-in-law.

But that’s another story.

Author notes

Harriet Hayden was an antislavery activist and deeply involved in the Boston component of the Underground Railroad that smuggled southern slaves to the north. John DeGrasse was the first Black man to be admitted to an American medical society (in 1854). The Boston Herald was a prominent newspaper of the 19th century. Gladstone bags (created in the mid-19th century) are not the traditional doctor’s bag, but because they fold open into two capacious halves, they seem like an eminently suitable tool for a resolutely practical doctor who performs house calls. Tory Row refers to Brattle Street, a part of Boston’s Cambridge area where divers loyalists built their mansions before the American Revolution. A “Boston marriage” was an agreement between two women, often wealthy, to live together (romantically or otherwise) without the “benefit” of financial support from a man.

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