Shocking Suicide at Hastings: The Death of Dorothy Richardson’s Mother (Book 3. Honeycomb)

Perhaps the most extreme example of Dorothy Richardson’s indirect approach to conventional plot and narrative is in her treatment of the suicide of Miriam’s mother at the end of Honeycomb. Here is what Richardson writes of the before and after of the event:

On the way home they talked of the old man. ‘He is right; but it is too late,’ said Mrs Henderson with clear quiet bitterness, ‘God has deserted me.’ They walked on, tiny figures in a world of huge greystone houses. ‘He will not let me sleep. He does not want me to sleep. … He does not care.’

A thought touched Miriam, touched and flashed. She grasped at it to hold and speak it, but it passed off into the world of grey houses. Her checks felt hollow, her feet heavy. She summoned her strength, but her body seemed outside her, empty, pacing forward in a world full of perfect unanswering silence.

The bony old woman held Miriam clasped closely in her arms. ‘You must never, as long as you live, blame yourself, my gurl.’ She went away. Miriam had not heard her come in. The pressure of her arms and her huge body came from far away. Miriam clasped her hands together. She could not feel them. Perhaps she had dreamed that the old woman had come in and said that. Everything was dream; the world. I shall not have any life. I can never have any life; all my days. There were cold tears running into her mouth. They had no salt. Cold water. They stopped. Moving her body with slow difficulty against the unsupporting air, she looked slowly about. It was so difficult to move. Everything was airy and transparent. Her heavy hot light impalpable body was the only solid thing in the world, weighing tons; and like a lifeless feather.

Of the event itself, nothing is said, then or thereafter.

The following report, which appeared in the Hastings and St Leonards Observer on Saturday, 7 December 1895, gives some sense of the gruesomeness of the suicide of Dorothy Richardson’s own mother — a sense that might explain why Richardson chose to avoid confronting the event directly in her novel.

---

SHOCKING SUICIDE AT HASTINGS

An inquest was held on Monday last, at the Town Hall, by the Borough Coroner (Mr. C. Davenport Jones), on the body of Mary Miller Richardson. Mr. A. C. Dowsett was chosen foreman the Jury.

Chas. Richardson, living at 15, Burnaby Gardens, Chiswick, said deceased was his wife, and was aged 52. He last saw her alive on the 12th November, when she left for Hastings, accompanied by her daughter, Dorothy. She had been suffering from nervous depression and insomnia for some time past, and on one occasion, about six or seven years ago, she had remarked that she felt tempted to commit suicide.

Dorothy Richardson, daughter of the deceased, deposed that she came to Hastings with her mother on the 12th ultimo. They stopped at 11, Devonshire-terrace. Although seeming slightly better when they arrived, about two or three days after she became worse, and Dr. Shaw was called in. He prescribed for her, and she got little better. During her stay at Hastings she had been suffering from insomnia, and shortly after her arrival said she felt tempted make away with herself. Witness had always watched her very carefully. On the morning of the at about a quarter to six, witness gave the deceased some beef tea and read to her. Shortly after this her mother went downstairs, and witness dropped off to sleep again, awaking about 8:45. Finding her mother was not in the room she went to the door of the W.C., which she found locked. Failing to get an answer, she called the servant of the house, who opened the door. Witness was not present when the door was opened.

Jessie Manning, domestic servant at 11, Devonshire-terrace, said on the previous Saturday morning, about nine, Miss Richardson called her to the W.C. She burst open tho door, and, seeing the body of deceased, immediately sent for doctor. Sirs. Richardson was attired in her nightdress and dressing-gown.

Mr. John G. Colborne, M.R.C.S., said on the morning of the 30th he was called to the house about 9.30. He went to the W.C., and found the door was kept back by weight against it. He shifted it, and then saw the body of deceased on the floor. The right arm was lying across the chest, and the fingers loosely held the handle of bread knife, the edge which rested in a deep incision the throat, cut from left to right. The large vessels and the windpipe were cut through. The injury was, his opinion, self-inflicted. The body was warm, but in his opinion life had been extinct for about hour or more. Patients suffering from insomnia frequently committed suicide, and would not be responsible for their actions.

The Jury returned a verdict of “Suicide during temporary insanity.”