Fanny's Journal 1780-1799
Entries 1780-1782 (translated from the original French and transcribed)
November 8, 1780
Stoney Grove, Nevis
I am to be the property of an Englishman. Not as another of his country owned my grandmother, for that ownership would not serve his means. My brother loathes me, is shamed by a father who could create me, frightened by a mother who did not envy his English ways nor honour his English laws. For this shame, this fear, he would sell his sister.
March 15, 1781
London, my wedding day
I am a teacup, a bolt of kersey, an ass, a cow, a goat, goods to be bartered or sold to seal a stranger’s bargain and make him rich, make him master, make him father to my unborn sons. I am dressed up in Homer, in Euclid, in Herodotus, but I am still a merchant’s whore.
February 2, 1782
Stoney Grove, Sussex
I dream of light. Night upon night I close my eyes and light shimmers, dances, beats upon me. It dances through water, dazzling bright. It flashes on the silvered glass of my father’s drawing room in the brilliance of noontime, it beats against the pure white stucco of the mansion’s walls. I see the white-gold belly of a giant fish in my grandmother’s leather-brown hands. I see the light of bonfires, great infernos burning the sand and the still waters of the bay into a brightness that quenches the stars. I move in the light, towards the light, I am the light. And then I awake in the darkness that is England in winter.
Entry 1784 (translated from the original French and transcribed)
December 14, 1784
Stoney Grove, Sussex
I’ve won the battle in this war of ours. I sleep alone in his house whilst the moonlight whispers to me of death and of another life.
Entries 1785-1788 (translated from the original French and transcribed)
April 17, 1785We churn the earth, we two. Like children building castles on the beach we dig, we shape, a miniature kingdom of mottes and baileys, but not for war, not for bloodshed. We will create beauty where there was none before.
June 8, 1785
Stoney Grove, Sussex
I have been asked, by my dearest friend, to be a wife again. How can I refuse him, this man that I love dearer than I have loved anyone but my own children? How can I accept him, he who thinks me pure, a flower, but does not know the danger that lies in all of living things? I cannot begrudge him a wife, I cannot be a wife. How shall I live?
August 17, 1785
Stoney Grove, Sussex
Waiting, always waiting. For his voice, for his eyes, for his touch upon my hair, my cheek, my lips, for his laughter, in the silence of his absence I wait.
March 14, 1786
Stoney Grove, Sussex
Sickness has returned to Stoney Grove. My child lies abed, feverish and fragile. My physic refuses to heal her, the doctor says he can not help. My friend paces outside the door, powerless in this arena. I must join him, for is not action better than silently awaiting death?
March 17, 1786
Stoney Grove, Sussex
She is well. Her face has lost its flush, her skin is cool and dry. I am still mother, though by what grace I do not know.
October 23, 1788
Stoney Grove, Sussex
Crows pushed across the sky like black rags before the wind. Leaves in whirlwinds rustling, their dry brown fingers reaching for the warmth of the fire, consumed by their greed. Darkness inching nearer as the sun withdraws her face from me. And then a giggle, a warm small hand upon my arm. The white fuzz of a dandelion pressed against my face, a gift from the dearest gift of all. A stirring in the breeze, and it is gone in a thousand tiny splinters.
Entries 1791-1792 (translated from the original French and transcribed)
May 1, 1791
Stoney Grove, Sussex
I see him when I look at her. She frowns and he is there, her smooth skin turned to wrinkles, her child-eyes turned hard. Quickly he is gone, and she is innocent again. ‘Ere long he has returned, an upturned nose, an impatient wave. Though I sent him from this place, stubbornly he returns.
February 5, 1792
Stoney Grove, Sussex
I dreamt of Ned last night, at the crossroads by a great hollow tree. He looked at me, his soft infant eyes on mine, and then he flew across the sea, like my grandmother before him.
Entry 1799 (translated from the original French and transcribed)
May 7, 1799
Stoney Grove, Sussex
I stand in a thicket of gentle blossoms amidst the faded beauty of the hyacinth, the tulip, the flag. I breathe the sweet scent of the rose, welcome harbingers of summer. I watch the clouds drift by, stark white against the deep blue heavens. I feel your fingers entwined with mine. I know happiness.