Vox Meditantis

Thursday, 21st November 1816

They would have me bent as the mules that draw the carts through Cheapside, my neck bowed to the ledger, my hand cramped about the quill until I know naught but the scratch of nib upon foolscap and the musty breath of these crumbling folios. But I am not a beast of burden, however much they would wish it so. I am a woman with a mind that ranges far beyond these walls, beyond the endless columns of figures and the dreary transcription of conveyances and testaments that fill my days in this dim hall of records.

My father secured this position for me – copying clerk to his employer, a merchant of middling prosperity – when it became clear that no husband would be forthcoming, and that I must earn my bread or become a burden upon my brothers. They think it a kindness, I suppose, to keep me thus employed amongst the dust and parchment, hidden away where my unmarried state causes no embarrassment to the family name. But I see it for what it truly is: a tether, a means to bind me to duty and respectability when every fibre of my being cries out for the open road, for distant horizons, for a life that extends beyond this sepulchre of papers.

I think often upon the journeys I shall never take. Before me lies a deed for property in the West Indies – three hundred acres of sugar plantation, bought and sold as easily as one might purchase a loaf. The very words conjure visions of azure seas and winds that carry the scent of strange blossoms, of lands I have read about in the geographies that I devour in secret, by candlelight, when the household sleeps. I have traced the routes of Cook’s voyages in atlases borrowed from my employer’s library, have followed with my finger the coast of New Holland and the islands of the South Seas. I hunger for such adventures with an appetite that no quantity of cold mutton or boiled turnips can satisfy.

Ah, but they would have me speak of food, would they not? Of the commonplace sustenance that marks the rhythm of our household, the familiar trinity of dishes that have graced our table since I was a child. Let me name them, then, though the naming itself feels like chains: first, the Sunday joint of beef, roasted with Yorkshire pudding, which my mother sets before my father with all the ceremony due a king, though he is but a clerk grown grey in another man’s service. Second, the Friday fish – usually cod or haddock, boiled plain in keeping with economy and the old customs, though we are not Papists. Third, and most frequent, the eternal pottage of peas or beans, thick with onions and whatever scraps of bacon or ham-bone can be spared, ladled into wooden bowls and consumed in silence whilst my father reads aloud improving passages from scripture or Bunyan’s Pilgrim.

It is that last which haunts me most – Pilgrim’s Progress – for though it speaks of the journey of the soul towards salvation, I cannot help but envy even Christian his quest, his purposeful striving towards a distant goal. What is my pilgrimage? From lodging-house to counting-house, from counting-house to lodging-house, with perhaps a Sunday walk if the weather permits and my duties are fulfilled. I am permitted no burden to cast off, no Slough of Despond to navigate, no Celestial City to seek. Only this endless transcription, this copying of other men’s deeds and ambitions, whilst my own remain forever unwritten.

The mice that nest behind the wainscoting know more liberty than I. I hear them in the quiet hours, scurrying along their secret highways through the walls, going about their small business with perfect freedom. No one expects them to sit still for ten hours whilst their backs ache and their eyes blur from peering at crabbed handwriting. They take what they need and move on. Would that I possessed such license! Would that I might gnaw through the bonds of propriety and expectation as easily as they gnaw through the leather bindings of these ancient volumes!

But I must not be discovered in such thoughts. I must present the appearance of gratitude, of maidenly modesty, of contentment with my lot. I must thank Providence – no, I must thank those who hold power over me – for this position, for the roof above my head and the bread upon my plate. I must smile and bend my neck and dip my pen and form each letter with proper care, recording the triumphs and transactions of men whilst my own longings remain locked within my breast like prisoners in the Fleet.

Yet still I dream. Still I imagine myself aboard a vessel bound for foreign ports, or travelling overland through France and Italy like the young gentlemen on their Grand Tours. I have read Mrs Radcliffe’s novels and know full well the perils that await unprotected females who venture beyond the bounds of home and propriety. But I would risk them all – the banditti, the ruined castles, the scheming villains – for even a fortnight of true liberty, of seeing with my own eyes the Alps and the Mediterranean, the ruins of Rome and the galleries of Florence.

They call it restlessness, this fever in my blood. They say it is unwomanly, that I ought to cultivate resignation and find satisfaction in humble duties well performed. My mother speaks to me of contentment, of accepting the station to which I have been called by the Almighty. But how can I believe that the Almighty – who fashioned the wide world in all its variety, who set the stars in their courses and filled the earth with wonders – how can I believe that He intends me to spend all my days in this airless room, copying bills of lading and inventories until my eyes fail and my hand loses its cunning?

No. I will not believe it. I will continue to dream of my journey, even if it must remain forever a journey of the mind. I will read my forbidden geographies and travel narratives. I will study the maps and documents that pass through my hands, learning what I can of the wider world. And perhaps, if fortune should shift, if some unexpected door should open – if some legacy should fall to me, or some distant relative should require a companion for travel – I shall seize it with both hands and never look back.

Until that day, I shall endure. But I shall endure as a free spirit trapped in circumstances, not as a willing prisoner. Let them think me grateful and obedient. Let them believe I am content to serve. In my heart, I am already far away, following the roads that wind towards the horizon, a pilgrim in pursuit of a city they cannot even imagine.

Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.