The Exiles

Evangeline Stokes, the governess for the wealthy Whitstone family in London, awakens one morning at the insistent knocking of the family servant, Agnes. While questioning Evangeline about her sickness, Agnes notices a Whitstone family heirloom sitting on Evangeline’s dresser—a brilliant ruby ring. Evangeline remarks that the ring was a gift from the family and refuses to answer any more questions. When Agnes leaves, she slips the ring into the pocket of an old dress in the bottom drawer of her dresser. Later that morning, while teaching the Whitstone children their lessons, Evangeline faces an obviously bothered Mrs. Whitstone, who commands Evangeline to report to the drawing room immediately.

When she arrives, she sees the ruby ring sitting on the table. Mrs. Whitstone, accompanied by a London sheriff, demands to know where Evangeline got the ring, which she says belongs to her husband. Evangeline quickly corrects her—“it belongs to Cecil…he gave it to me” (16), she replies, referring to the eldest Whitstone son. She recalls a few days earlier when Cecil had given her the ring, his grandmother’s, as a celebration of their affair. The next day, Cecil left for vacation—leaving no one to validate Evangeline’s story. Mrs. Whitstone laughs at her story before realizing it might be true. She accuses Evangeline of lying and theft before the sheriff asks Evangeline to leave the room. On her way back to her quarters, she runs into Agnes. In her anger, Evangeline grabs Agnes and reminds her that the ring was a gift. Agnes laughs and tells Evangeline, “that’s only half the trouble…Yer pregnant” (20). The realization hits Evangeline suddenly, as she now knows why she has been nauseous. When Agnes calls her “the laughingstock of the household” (21), Evangeline pushes her down the stairs. As the rest of the staff responds to Agnes’s cries, Evangeline muses that life as she has known it is over. The police arrive to put her in shackles and take her away.

On her way to the jail, she remembers the first day she arrived at the Whitstone residence with all her worldly goods in a ramshackle leather suitcase. Cecil answered the door—a handsome young man with “lively and curious” (23) brown eyes. Immediately, she was swept into his charms as he insisted on showing her the house and attended to her every need. Now, in the carriage on the way to prison, Evangeline traces the Whitstone family crest embroidered onto a handkerchief once belonging to Cecil and realizes how naive she must have been.

As the carriage approaches Newgate Prison, Evangeline feels completely out of place. This part of London is unlike any place she’s ever seen: “the air, dense with coal smoke, reeked of horse manure and rotting vegetables” (28). She sees children collecting animal bones on the streets to make a few coins. When they pull up to the front gates, a crowd of women wait to laugh and jeer at the new round of criminals arriving. One woman calls out to Evangeline, “God have mercy on your soul” (29). Evangeline walks aimlessly and still cannot believe her circumstances.

The guards bring her to the prison matron. They search her—quite intimately—in front of the woman and give the matron Evangeline’s information—she is charged with “attempted murder and larceny” (33). When the men leave, Evangeline tries to convince the matron that she is not guilty of these charges, but the matron dismisses her claims as irrelevant to her circumstances. She takes Evangeline down the corridor to her cell. Along the way, Evangeline is nauseated by the company in the cells—women who try to touch the hem of Evangeline’s gown. She recoils in disgust. When they reach the already-full cell, a woman lies there, dead and cold. The matron tells the other women in the cell to move the body over until tomorrow. As Evangeline enters, she trips and falls in the darkness. The women kick her and tell her to get up. She does but immediately throws up in the corner, much to the other women’s disgust. She falls into a restless sleep for a brief period of time only to awaken in a dream of the life she had left behind.

The next morning, Evangeline struggles to remember where she is and why—until she smells the air around her. She lines up with the rest of the women to receive the cold gruel that prison guards dump into their cups. While she chokes the food down, she watches a younger woman holding a baby against her neck, singing an old Scottish lullaby. Suddenly, a large, brutish woman pokes her in the back to ask why she is imprisoned. The woman, Olive, is a sex worker accused of murdering a man who did not pay for her services. After listening to Evangeline speak, Olive deems her to be posh and snobby. When Evangeline claims to have been falsely accused, Olive listens to her story and then declares, “Pity you’re not so smart in the ways of the world” (43), implying that Evangeline is too naive to see through Cecil’s lies.

Evangeline flashes back to her upbringing. As the daughter of a local clergyman, she knew “a woman’s greatest possession was her chastity” (43), which she held close to her heart until meeting Cecil. Her father, a widower whose wife died in childbirth with Evangeline, spent his time ensuring his daughter knew the classics and major philosophers, but he did not ensure that she understood people and how they operate. After his death, the incoming vicar found Evangeline a job as a governess for a local wealthy family—the Whitstones. It was the perfect arrangement—until Cecil.

Evangeline considers whether Cecil will come for her at Newgate. She takes baths as often as possible and keeps herself clean and presentable—until Olive tells her she is wasting her time. Cecil will not come for her. Evangeline thinks that he must—he was so wonderful to her in their time together and convinced her that she was the most important person in his life. As their love affair grew, everyone in the household knew about the two of them. When he gave her the ring, she assumed it meant forever. It is not until she is sitting at Newgate that she realizes she was lying to herself just like he was lying to her.

As the days wear on, Evangeline finds it hard to reconcile this new life to her old one: the daily fights in the cells, lukewarm soup made of animal parts, and “moldy bread laced with maggots” (52) make her feel that she will never become accustomed to this place. Eventually, though, she finds these hardships easier and easier to endure. She no longer thinks of Cecil and their love affair—instead, her mind fills with thoughts of her old home in Tunbridge Wells where she spent her life with her father. She relishes those little memories of trivial daily chores and remembers her father teaching her that everyone impacts her life, like the rings of a tree reflect each hard winter and easy summer.

Because she spent so much time with her father visiting sick people, Evangeline is familiar with the sickness and dirt that surrounds her all the time at Newgate. In her younger days, she would have shied away from these types of people after her duties were done. Now, she must face “the most private, shameful parts of being human” (55)—the blood, vomit, and excrement. Now, she is one of those people that she used to despise.

Two weeks after she arrives at Newgate, the guards summon Evangeline to speak in front of the judge. He does not care what she has to say by way of defense and sentences her to a prison transport to Australia, where she will be a prisoner for 14 years due to her crimes. Evangeline cannot breathe. Through her despair at such a sentence, Olive reminds her that they are all just slaves, of some sort, to the British Empire—England must rid itself of all convicts, and Australia is the latest dumping ground. At church on Sundays—which all convicts must attend—Evangeline and the rest are reminded of how inconsequential they are as sinners, “wretched sinners paying an earthly penance” (62). She doesn’t see herself as wicked and instead comforts herself by reminding herself that she is still alive.

There is no way for Evangeline to keep track of time in Newgate, and she only realizes how much time has passed when she notices her stomach and breasts beginning to swell, the “visual proof of her degradation” (63). One morning, a group of Quaker women arrive to bring the prisoners new clothes and edible food. They are quite kind—in contrast to the normal vitriolic Sunday preacher—and remind the women that “each of [them] is worthy of redemption” (64). The leader, Mrs. Fry, focuses on Evangeline when she hears Evangeline’s educated tone of voice. She does not judge Evangeline for being pregnant out of wedlock—rather, she seems to understand that errors in judgment occur. She gives Evangeline a new dress, and Evangeline is embarrassed by her smell and appearance; however, Mrs. Fry does not react. Evangeline feels the baby kick for the first time after the women leave.

One morning, the guards arrive with a list of names—the transport ship to Australia is ready. Evangeline, Olive, and a few other women are called, and Evangeline can barely believe the sight of London when she emerges from the dark prison. Life has gone on—nothing has changed about the London she knew before entering Newgate. A group of women in beautiful dresses see the group of prisoners and turn away in revulsion. Finally, the carriage arrives to take them to the ship. The women are thrown into the cramped enclosure, but Evangeline holds carefully to Cecil’s handkerchief and traces the monogram in comfort.