Short Fiction · Chapter
Dame the Fifth: The Lady Icenway explained
Maria Heymere, a proud and beautiful young orphan, marries a Dutch planter named Anderling who reveals on their voyage to Guiana that he already has a wife.
What happens
Maria Heymere, a proud and beautiful young orphan, marries a Dutch planter named Anderling who reveals on their voyage to Guiana that he already has a wife. To preserve her dignity, she returns to England, pretends to be a widow, and later marries Lord Icenway. When Anderling's wife dies and he seeks to remarry her, she rejects him to protect her new title and position.
Themes in this chapter
Deception and Secrecy
Maria's entire life is built on the secret of Anderling's existence and her false widowhood, which she guards to maintain her reputation.
Social Class and Mobility
Maria's remarriage to Lord Icenway elevates her to a title, and she prioritizes social position over personal truth.
Sacrifice and Duty
Anderling sacrifices his own happiness and agrees to vanish to protect Maria's status, while Maria sacrifices love for social security.
Characters to notice
- Maria Heymere
The proud and beautiful protagonist who marries Anderling, then Lord Icenway, and rejects Anderling's return to protect her social standing.
- Anderling
The Dutch planter from Guiana who bigamously marries Maria, confesses his prior marriage, and later returns after his wife's death only to be rejected.
- Lord Icenway
The nobleman Maria marries after her false widowhood; he is older and plain but gives her a title.
Key passages
“She slipped to the ground, not seriously hurt, and was assisted home by a gentleman who came in view at the moment of her mishap.”
She fell off her horse but was unharmed, and a stranger helped her get home.
This is how Maria first meets Anderling.
“It had been his misfortune, he said, to marry at Quebec in early life a woman whose reputation proved to be in every way bad and scandalous.”
He confessed that he had previously married a woman in Quebec who turned out to be disreputable.
Anderling reveals his bigamy to Maria during their voyage.
“She then requested him to allow her to return, and announce him as having died of malignant ague immediately on their arrival at Paramaribo; that she should consequently appear in weeds as his widow in her native place.”
She asked him to let her go back to England and pretend he had died of fever, so she could return as a widow.
Maria's plan to conceal the truth and preserve her reputation.
“He bowed his head. 'And the child—our child?' he said. 'He is well,' says she. 'Quite well.'”
He lowered his head and asked about their child, and she replied that the child was fine.
Anderling's final, painful inquiry about his son before being dismissed.