The Vaster Wilds

The girl loses faith and feels a great emptiness consume her. She imagines her sailor with her. She then pictures Bess waking up and thinks that she has always known the truth—that there is “no fight in this world, only submission” (232).

Too ill to block out her bad memories, the girl begins to ruminate upon her mistress’s second marriage to the minister, analyzing the devastating effect it had on the household. She remembers that his demands and cruelty quickly made him unpopular in the house. He further cemented the girl’s dislike when he forced the mistress, Bess, and the girl to come along with him to the colony in an attempt to gain more wealth. In the colony, the mistress could no longer disguise her age with makeup, and Bess gave up on living entirely. When Bess died, the girl grieved deeply, washing and caring for Bess’s body all by herself. The night after Bess was buried, she woke to find the minister and the mistress’s cots empty. She went to investigate and discovered them and some others eating Bess’s body. Enraged, the girl attacked the mistress, but the other colonists dragged her off.