MOLL FLANDERS
My true name is so well known in
the records or registers at Newgate, and in the Old Bailey, and
there are some things of such consequence still depending there,
relating to my particular conduct, that it is not be expected I
should set my name or the account of my family to this work;
perhaps, after my death, it may be better known; at present it
would not be proper, no not though a general pardon should be
issued, even without exceptions and reserve of persons or
crimes.
It is enough to tell you, that as
some of my worst comrades, who are out of the way of doing me harm
(having gone out of the world by the steps and the string, as I
often expected to go ), knew me by the name of Moll Flanders, so
you may give me leave to speak of myself under that name till I
dare own who I have been, as well as who I am.
I have been told that in one of
neighbour nations, whether it be in France or where else I know
not, they have an order from the king, that when any criminal is
condemned, either to die, or to the galleys, or to be transported,
if they leave any children, as such are generally unprovided for,
by the poverty or forfeiture of their parents, so they are
immediately taken into the care of the Government, and put into a
hospital called the House of Orphans, where they are bred up,
clothed, fed, taught, and when fit to go out, are placed out to
trades or to services, so as to be well able to provide for
themselves by an honest, industrious behaviour.
Had this been the custom in our
country, I had not been left a poor desolate girl without friends,
without clothes, without help or helper in the world, as was my
fate; and by which I was not only exposed to very great distresses,
even before I was capable either of understanding my case or how to
amend it, but brought into a course of life which was not only
scandalous in itself, but which in its ordinary course tended to
the swift destruction both of soul and body.
But the case was otherwise here.
My mother was convicted of felony for a certain petty theft scarce
worth naming, viz. having an opportunity of borrowing three pieces
of fine holland of a certain
draper in Cheapside. The
circumstances are too long to repeat, and I have heard them related
so many ways, that I can scarce be certain which is the right
account.
However it was, this they all
agree in, that my mother pleaded her belly, and being found quick
with child, she was respited for about seven months; in which time
having brought me into the world, and being about again, she was
called down, as they term it, to her former judgment, but obtained
the favour of being transported to the plantations, and left me
about half a year old; and in bad hands, you may be sure.
This is too near the first hours
of my life for me to relate anything of myself but by hearsay; it
is enough to mention, that as I was born in such an unhappy place,
I had no parish to have recourse to for my nourishment in my
infancy; nor can I give the least account how I was kept alive,
other than that, as I have been told, some relation of my mother's
took me away for a while as a nurse, but at whose expense, or by
whose direction, I know nothing at all of it.
The first account that I can
recollect, or could ever learn of myself, was that I had wandered
among a crew of those people they call gypsies, or Egyptians; but I
believe it was but a very little while that I had been among them,
for I had not had my skin discoloured or blackened, as they do very
young to all the children they carry about with them; nor can I
tell how I came among them, or how I got from them.
It was at Colchester, in Essex,
that those people left me; and I have a notion in my head that I
left them there (that is, that I hid myself and would not go any
farther with them), but I am not able to be particular in that
account; only this I remember, that being taken up by some of the
parish officers of Colchester, I gave an account that I came into
the town with the gypsies, but that I would not go any farther with
them, and that so they had left me, but whither they were gone that
I knew not, nor could they expect it of me; for though they send
round the country to inquire after them, it seems they could not be
found.
I was now in a way to be provided
for; for though I was not a parish charge upon this or that part of
the town by law, yet as my case came to be known, and that I was
too young to do any work, being not above three years old,
compassion moved the magistrates of the town to order some care to
be taken of me, and I became one of their own as much as if I had
been born in the place.
In the provision they made for
me, it was my good hap to be put to nurse, as they call it, to a
woman who was indeed poor but had been in better circumstances, and
who got a little livelihood by taking such as I was supposed to be,
and keeping them with all necessaries, till they were at a certain
age, in which it might be supposed they might go to service or get
their own bread.
This woman had also had a little
school, which she kept to teach children to read and to work; and
having, as I have said, lived before that in good fashion, she bred
up the children she took with a great deal of art, as well as with
a great deal of care.
But that which was worth all the
rest, she bred them up very religiously, being herself a very
sober, pious woman, very house- wifely and clean, and very
mannerly, and with good behaviour. So that in a word, expecting a
plain diet, coarse lodging, and mean clothes, we were brought up as
mannerly and as genteelly as if we had been at the
dancing-school.
I was continued here till I was
eight years old, when I was terrified with news that the
magistrates (as I think they called them) had ordered that I should
go to service. I was able to do but very little service wherever I
was to go, except it was to run of errands and be a drudge to some
cookmaid, and this they told me of often, which put me into a great
fright; for I had a thorough aversion to going to service, as they
called it (that is, to be a servant), though I was so young; and I
told my nurse, as we called her, that I believed I could get my
living without going to service, if she pleased to let me; for she
had taught me to work with my needle, and spin worsted, which is
the chief trade of that city, and I told her that if she would keep
me, I would work for her, and I would work very hard.
I talked to her almost every day
of working hard; and, in short, I did nothing but work and cry all
day, which grieved the good, kind woman so much, that at last she
began to be concerned for me, for she loved me very well.
One day after this, as she came
into the room where all we poor children were at work, she sat down
just over against me, not in her usual place as mistress, but as if
she set herself on purpose to observe me and see me work. I was
doing something she had set me to; as I remember, it was marking
some shirts which she had taken to make, and after a while she
began to talk to me. 'Thou foolish child,' says she, 'thou art
always crying (for I was crying then); 'prithee, what dost cry
for?' 'Because they will take me away,' says I, 'and put me to
service, and I can't work housework.' 'Well, child,' says she, 'but
though you can't work housework, as you call it, you will learn it
in time, and they won't put you to hard things at first.' 'Yes,
they will,' says I, 'and if I can't do it they will beat me, and
the maids will beat me to make me do great work, and I am but a
little girl and I can't do it'; and then I cried again, till I
could not speak any more to her.
This moved my good motherly
nurse, so that she from that time resolved I should not go to
service yet; so she bid me not cry, and she would speak to Mr.
Mayor, and I should not go to service till I was bigger.
Well, this did not satisfy me,
for to think of going to service was such a frightful thing to me,
that if she had assured me I should not have gone till I was twenty
years old, it would have been the same to me; I should have cried,
I believe, all the time, with the very apprehension of its being to
be so at last.
When she saw that I was not
pacified yet, she began to be angry with me. 'And what would you
have?' says she; 'don't I tell you that you shall not go to service
till your are bigger?' 'Ay,' said I, 'but then I must go at last.'
'Why, what?' said she; 'is the girl mad? What would you be—a
gentlewoman?' 'Yes,' says I, and cried heartily till I roared out
again.
This set the old gentlewoman
a-laughing at me, as you may be sure it would. 'Well, madam,
forsooth,' says she, gibing at me, 'you
would be a gentlewoman; and pray
how will you come to be a gentlewoman? What! will you do it by your
fingers' end?'
'Yes,' says I again, very
innocently.
'Why, what can you earn?' says
she; 'what can you get at your work?'
'Threepence,' said I, 'when I
spin, and fourpence when I work plain work.'
'Alas! poor gentlewoman,' said
she again, laughing, 'what will that do for thee?'
'It will keep me,' says I, 'if
you will let me live with you.' And this I said in such a poor
petitioning tone, that it made the poor woman's heart yearn to me,
as she told me afterwards.
'But,' says she, 'that will not
keep you and buy you clothes too; and who must buy the little
gentlewoman clothes?' says she, and smiled all the while at
me.
'I will work harder, then,' says
I, 'and you shall have it all.'
'Poor child! it won't keep you,'
says she; 'it will hardly keep you in victuals.'
'Then I will have no victuals,'
says I, again very innocently; 'let me but live with you.'
'Why, can you live without
victuals?' says she.
'Yes,' again says I, very much
like a child, you may be sure, and still I cried heartily.
I had no policy in all this; you
may easily see it was all nature; but it was joined with so much
innocence and so much passion that, in short, it set the good
motherly creature a-weeping too, and she cried at last as fast as I
did, and then took me and led me out of the teaching-room. 'Come,'
says she, 'you shan't go to service; you shall live with me'; and
this pacified me for the present.
Some time after this, she going
to wait on the Mayor, and talking of such things as belonged to her
business, at last my story came up, and my good nurse told Mr.
Mayor the whole tale. He was so pleased with it, that he would call
his lady and his two daughters to hear it, and it made mirth enough
among them, you may be sure.
However, not a week had passed
over, but on a sudden comes Mrs. Mayoress and her two daughters to
the house to see my old nurse, and to see her school and the
children. When they had looked about them a little, 'Well, Mrs.
——,' says the Mayoress to my nurse, 'and pray which is the little
lass that intends to be a gentlewoman?' I heard her, and I was
terribly frighted at first, though I did not know why neither; but
Mrs. Mayoress comes up to me. 'Well, miss,' says she, 'and what are
you at work upon?' The word miss was a language that had hardly
been heard of in our school, and I wondered what sad name it was
she called me. However, I stood up, made a curtsy, and she took my
work out of my hand, looked on it, and said it was very well; then
she took up one of the hands. 'Nay,' says she, 'the child may come
to be a gentlewoman for aught anybody knows; she has a
gentlewoman's hand,' says she. This pleased me mightily, you may be
sure; but Mrs. Mayoress did not stop there, but giving me my work
again, she put her hand in her pocket, gave me a shilling, and bid
me mind my work, and learn to work well, and I might be a
gentlewoman for aught she knew.
Now all this while my good old
nurse, Mrs. Mayoress, and all the rest of them did not understand
me at all, for they meant one sort of thing by the word
gentlewoman, and I meant quite another; for alas! all I understood
by being a gentlewoman was to be able to work for myself, and get
enough to keep me without that terrible bugbear going to service,
whereas they meant to live great, rich and high, and I know not
what.
Well, after Mrs. Mayoress was
gone, her two daughters came in, and they called for the
gentlewoman too, and they talked a long while to me, and I answered
them in my innocent way; but always, if they asked me whether I
resolved to be a gentlewoman, I answered Yes. At last one of them
asked me what a gentlewoman was? That puzzled me much; but,
however, I explained myself negatively, that it was one that did
not go to service, to do
housework. They were pleased to
be familiar with me, and like my little prattle to them, which, it
seems, was agreeable enough to them, and they gave me money
too.
As for my money, I gave it all to
my mistress-nurse, as I called her, and told her she should have
all I got for myself when I was a gentlewoman, as well as now. By
this and some other of my talk, my old tutoress began to understand
me about what I meant by being a gentlewoman, and that I understood
by it no more than to be able to get my bread by my own work; and
at last she asked me whether it was not so.
I told her, yes, and insisted on
it, that to do so was to be a gentlewoman; 'for,' says I, 'there is
such a one,' naming a woman that mended lace and washed the ladies'
laced-heads; 'she,' says I, 'is a gentlewoman, and they call her
madam.'
'Poor child,' says my good old
nurse, 'you may soon be such a gentlewoman as that, for she is a
person of ill fame, and has had two or three bastards.'
I did not understand anything of
that; but I answered, 'I am sure they call her madam, and she does
not go to service nor do housework'; and therefore I insisted that
she was a gentlewoman, and I would be such a gentlewoman as
that.
The ladies were told all this
again, to be sure, and they made themselves merry with it, and
every now and then the young ladies, Mr. Mayor's daughters, would
come and see me, and ask where the little gentlewoman was, which
made me not a little proud of myself.
This held a great while, and I
was often visited by these young ladies, and sometimes they brought
others with them; so that I was known by it almost all over the
town.
I was now about ten years old,
and began to look a little womanish, for I was mighty grave and
humble, very mannerly, and as I had often heard the ladies say I
was pretty, and would be a very handsome woman, so you may be sure
that hearing them say so made me not a little proud. However, that
pride had no ill effect upon me yet; only, as they often gave me
money, and I gave it to my
old nurse, she, honest woman, was
so just to me as to lay it all out again for me, and gave me
head-dresses, and linen, and gloves, and ribbons, and I went very
neat, and always clean; for that I would do, and if I had rags on,
I would always be clean, or else I would dabble them in water
myself; but, I say, my good nurse, when I had money given me, very
honestly laid it out for me, and would always tell the ladies this
or that was bought with their money; and this made them oftentimes
give me more, till at last I was indeed called upon by the
magistrates, as I understood it, to go out to service; but then I
was come to be so good a workwoman myself, and the ladies were so
kind to me, that it was plain I could maintain myself—that is to
say, I could earn as much for my nurse as she was able by it to
keep me—so she told them that if they would give her leave, she
would keep the gentlewoman, as she called me, to be her assistant
and teach the children, which I was very well able to do; for I was
very nimble at my work, and had a good hand with my needle, though
I was yet very young.
But the kindness of the ladies of
the town did not end here, for when they came to understand that I
was no more maintained by the public allowance as before, they gave
me money oftener than formerly; and as I grew up they brought me
work to do for them, such as linen to make, and laces to mend, and
heads to dress up, and not only paid me for doing them, but even
taught me how to do them; so that now I was a gentlewoman indeed,
as I understood that word, I not only found myself clothes and paid
my nurse for my keeping, but got money in my pocket too
beforehand.
The ladies also gave me clothes
frequently of their own or their children's; some stockings, some
petticoats, some gowns, some one thing, some another, and these my
old woman managed for me like a mere mother, and kept them for me,
obliged me to mend them, and turn them and twist them to the best
advantage, for she was a rare housewife.
At last one of the ladies took so
much fancy to me that she would have me home to her house, for a
month, she said, to be among her daughters.
Now, though this was exceeding
kind in her, yet, as my old good woman said to her, unless she
resolved to keep me for good
and all, she would do the little
gentlewoman more harm than good. 'Well,' says the lady, 'that's
true; and therefore I'll only take her home for a week, then, that
I may see how my daughters and she agree together, and how I like
her temper, and then I'll tell you more; and in the meantime, if
anybody comes to see her as they used to do, you may only tell them
you have sent her out to my house.'
This was prudently managed
enough, and I went to the lady's house; but I was so pleased there
with the young ladies, and they so pleased with me, that I had
enough to do to come away, and they were as unwilling to part with
me.
However, I did come away, and
lived almost a year more with my honest old woman, and began now to
be very helpful to her; for I was almost fourteen years old, was
tall of my age, and looked a little womanish; but I had such a
taste of genteel living at the lady's house that I was not so easy
in my old quarters as I used to be, and I thought it was fine to be
a gentlewoman indeed, for I had quite other notions of a
gentlewoman now than I had before; and as I thought, I say, that it
was fine to be a gentlewoman, so I loved to be among gentlewomen,
and therefore I longed to be there again.
About the time that I was
fourteen years and a quarter old, my good nurse, mother I rather to
call her, fell sick and died. I was then in a sad condition indeed,
for as there is no great bustle in putting an end to a poor body's
family when once they are carried to the grave, so the poor good
woman being buried, the parish children she kept were immediately
removed by the church-wardens; the school was at an end, and the
children of it had no more to do but just stay at home till they
were sent somewhere else; and as for what she left, her daughter, a
married woman with six or seven children, came and swept it all
away at once, and removing the goods, they had no more to say to me
than to jest with me, and tell me that the little gentlewoman might
set up for herself if she pleased.
I was frighted out of my wits
almost, and knew not what to do, for I was, as it were, turned out
of doors to the wide world, and that which was still worse, the old
honest woman had two-and-twenty shillings of mine in her hand,
which was all the estate the little gentlewoman had in the world;
and when I asked the daughter for
it, she huffed me and laughed at
me, and told me she had nothing to do with it.
It was true the good, poor woman
had told her daughter of it, and that it lay in such a place, that
it was the child's money, and had called once or twice for me to
give it me, but I was, unhappily, out of the way somewhere or
other, and when I came back she was past being in a condition to
speak of it. However, the daughter was so honest afterwards as to
give it me, though at first she used me cruelly about it.
Now was I a poor gentlewoman
indeed, and I was just that very night to be turned into the wide
world; for the daughter removed all the goods, and I had not so
much as a lodging to go to, or a bit of bread to eat. But it seems
some of the neighbours, who had known my circumstances, took so
much compassion of me as to acquaint the lady in whose family I had
been a week, as I mentioned above; and immediately she sent her
maid to fetch me away, and two of her daughters came with the maid
though unsent. So I went with them, bag and baggage, and with a
glad heart, you may be sure. The fright of my condition had made
such an impression upon me, that I did not want now to be a
gentlewoman, but was very willing to be a servant, and that any
kind of servant they thought fit to have me be.
But my new generous mistress, for
she exceeded the good woman I was with before, in everything, as
well as in the matter of estate; I say, in everything except
honesty; and for that, though this was a lady most exactly just,
yet I must not forget to say on all occasions, that the first,
though poor, was as uprightly honest as it was possible for any one
to be.
I was no sooner carried away, as
I have said, by this good gentlewoman, but the first lady, that is
to say, the Mayoress that was, sent her two daughters to take care
of me; and another family which had taken notice of me when I was
the little gentlewoman, and had given me work to do, sent for me
after her, so that I was mightily made of, as we say; nay, and they
were not a little angry, especially madam the Mayoress, that her
friend had taken me away from her, as she called it; for, as she
said, I was hers by right, she having been the first that took any
notice of me. But they that had me would not part with me; and as
for me, though I should have
been very well treated with any
of the others, yet I could not be better than where I was.
Here I continued till I was
between seventeen and eighteen years old, and here I had all the
advantages for my education that could be imagined; the lady had
masters home to the house to teach her daughters to dance, and to
speak French, and to write, and other to teach them music; and I
was always with them, I learned as fast as they; and though the
masters were not appointed to teach me, yet I learned by imitation
and inquiry all that they learned by instruction and direction; so
that, in short, I learned to dance and speak French as well as any
of them, and to sing much better, for I had a better voice than any
of them. I could not so readily come at playing on the harpsichord
or spinet, because I had no instrument of my own to practice on,
and could only come at theirs in the intervals when they left it,
which was uncertain; but yet I learned tolerably well too, and the
young ladies at length got two instruments, that is to say, a
harpsichord and a spinet too, and then they taught me themselves.
But as to dancing, they could hardly help my learning
country-dances, because they always wanted me to make up even
number; and, on the other hand, they were as heartily willing to
learn me everything that they had been taught themselves, as I
could be to take the learning.
By this means I had, as I have
said above, all the advantages of education that I could have had
if I had been as much a gentlewoman as they were with whom I lived;
and in some things I had the advantage of my ladies, though they
were my superiors; but they were all the gifts of nature, and which
all their fortunes could not furnish. First, I was apparently
handsomer than any of them; secondly, I was better shaped; and,
thirdly, I sang better, by which I mean I had a better voice; in
all which you will, I hope, allow me to say, I do not speak my own
conceit of myself, but the opinion of all that knew the
family.
I had with all these the common
vanity of my sex, viz. that being really taken for very handsome,
or, if you please, for a great beauty, I very well knew it, and had
as good an opinion of myself as anybody else could have of me; and
particularly I loved to hear
anybody speak of it, which could
not but happen to me sometimes, and was a great satisfaction to
me.
Thus far I have had a smooth
story to tell of myself, and in all this part of my life I not only
had the reputation of living in a very good family, and a family
noted and respected everywhere for virtue and sobriety, and for
every valuable thing; but I had the character too of a very sober,
modest, and virtuous young woman, and such I had always been;
neither had I yet any occasion to think of anything else, or to
know what a temptation to wickedness meant.
But that which I was too vain of
was my ruin, or rather my vanity was the cause of it. The lady in
the house where I was had two sons, young gentlemen of very
promising parts and of extraordinary behaviour, and it was my
misfortune to be very well with them both, but they managed
themselves with me in a quite different manner.
The eldest, a gay gentleman that
knew the town as well as the country, and though he had levity
enough to do an ill-natured thing, yet had too much judgment of
things to pay too dear for his pleasures; he began with the unhappy
snare to all women, viz. taking notice upon all occasions how
pretty I was, as he called it, how agreeable, how well-carriaged,
and the like; and this he contrived so subtly, as if he had known
as well how to catch a woman in his net as a partridge when he went
a-setting; for he would contrive to be talking this to his sisters
when, though I was not by, yet when he knew I was not far off but
that I should be sure to hear him. His sisters would return softly
to him, 'Hush, brother, she will hear you; she is but in the next
room.' Then he would put it off and talk softlier, as if he had not
know it, and begin to acknowledge he was wrong; and then, as if he
had forgot himself, he would speak aloud again, and I, that was so
well pleased to hear it, was sure to listen for it upon all
occasions.
After he had thus baited his
hook, and found easily enough the method how to lay it in my way,
he played an opener game; and one day, going by his sister's
chamber when I was there, doing something about dressing her, he
comes in with an air of gaiety. 'Oh, Mrs. Betty,' said he to me,
'how do you do, Mrs. Betty? Don't your
cheeks burn, Mrs. Betty?' I made
a curtsy and blushed, but said nothing. 'What makes you talk so,
brother?' says the lady. 'Why,' says he, 'we have been talking of
her below-stairs this half-hour.' 'Well,' says his sister, 'you can
say no harm of her, that I am sure, so 'tis no matter what you have
been talking about.' 'Nay,' says he, ''tis so far from talking harm
of her, that we have been talking a great deal of good, and a great
many fine things have been said of Mrs. Betty, I assure you; and
particularly, that she is the handsomest young woman in Colchester;
and, in short, they begin to toast her health in the town.'
'I wonder at you, brother,' says
the sister. 'Betty wants but one thing, but she had as good want
everything, for the market is against our sex just now; and if a
young woman have beauty, birth, breeding, wit, sense, manners,
modesty, and all these to an extreme, yet if she have not money,
she's nobody, she had as good want them all for nothing but money
now recommends a woman; the men play the game all into their own
hands.'
Her younger brother, who was by,
cried, 'Hold, sister, you run too fast; I am an exception to your
rule. I assure you, if I find a woman so accomplished as you talk
of, I say, I assure you, I would not trouble myself about the
money.'
'Oh,' says the sister, 'but you
will take care not to fancy one, then, without the money.'
'You don't know that neither,'
says the brother.
'But why, sister,' says the elder
brother, 'why do you exclaim so at the men for aiming so much at
the fortune? You are none of them that want a fortune, whatever
else you want.'
'I understand you, brother,'
replies the lady very smartly; 'you suppose I have the money, and
want the beauty; but as times go now, the first will do without the
last, so I have the better of my neighbours.'
'Well,' says the younger brother,
'but your neighbours, as you call them, may be even with you, for
beauty will steal a husband sometimes in spite of money, and when
the maid chances to be
handsomer than the mistress, she
oftentimes makes as good a market, and rides in a coach before
her.'
I thought it was time for me to
withdraw and leave them, and I did so, but not so far but that I
heard all their discourse, in which I heard abundance of the fine
things said of myself, which served to prompt my vanity, but, as I
soon found, was not the way to increase my interest in the family,
for the sister and the younger brother fell grievously out about
it; and as he said some very disobliging things to her upon my
account, so I could easily see that she resented them by her future
conduct to me, which indeed was very unjust to me, for I had never
had the least thought of what she suspected as to her younger
brother; indeed, the elder brother, in his distant, remote way, had
said a great many things as in jest, which I had the folly to
believe were in earnest, or to flatter myself with the hopes of
what I ought to have supposed he never intended, and perhaps never
thought of.
It happened one day that he came
running upstairs, towards the room where his sisters used to sit
and work, as he often used to do; and calling to them before he
came in, as was his way too, I, being there alone, stepped to the
door, and said, 'Sir, the ladies are not here, they are walked down
the garden.' As I stepped forward to say this, towards the door, he
was just got to the door, and clasping me in his arms, as if it had
been by chance, 'Oh, Mrs. Betty,' says he, 'are you here? That's
better still; I want to speak with you more than I do with them';
and then, having me in his arms, he kissed me three or four
times.
I struggled to get away, and yet
did it but faintly neither, and he held me fast, and still kissed
me, till he was almost out of breath, and then, sitting down, says,
'Dear Betty, I am in love with you.'
His words, I must confess, fired
my blood; all my spirits flew about my heart and put me into
disorder enough, which he might easily have seen in my face. He
repeated it afterwards several times, that he was in love with me,
and my heart spoke as plain as a voice, that I liked it; nay,
whenever he said, 'I am in love with you,' my blushes plainly
replied, 'Would you were, sir.'
However, nothing else passed at
that time; it was but a surprise, and when he was gone I soon
recovered myself again. He had stayed longer with me, but he
happened to look out at the window and see his sisters coming up
the garden, so he took his leave, kissed me again, told me he was
very serious, and I should hear more of him very quickly, and away
he went, leaving me infinitely pleased, though surprised; and had
there not been one misfortune in it, I had been in the right, but
the mistake lay here, that Mrs. Betty was in earnest and the
gentleman was not.
From this time my head ran upon
strange things, and I may truly say I was not myself; to have such
a gentleman talk to me of being in love with me, and of my being
such a charming creature, as he told me I was; these were things I
knew not how to bear, my vanity was elevated to the last degree. It
is true I had my head full of pride, but, knowing nothing of the
wickedness of the times, I had not one thought of my own safety or
of my virtue about me; and had my young master offered it at first
sight, he might have taken any liberty he thought fit with me; but
he did not see his advantage, which was my happiness for that
time.
After this attack it was not long
but he found an opportunity to catch me again, and almost in the
same posture; indeed, it had more of design in it on his part,
though not on my part. It was thus: the young ladies were all gone
a-visiting with their mother; his brother was out of town; and as
for his father, he had been in London for a week before. He had so
well watched me that he knew where I was, though I did not so much
as know that he was in the house; and he briskly comes up the
stairs and, seeing me at work, comes into the room to me directly,
and began just as he did before, with taking me in his arms, and
kissing me for almost a quarter of an hour together.
It was his younger sister's
chamber that I was in, and as there was nobody in the house but the
maids below-stairs, he was, it may be, the ruder; in short, he
began to be in earnest with me indeed. Perhaps he found me a little
too easy, for God knows I made no resistance to him while he only
held me in his arms and kissed me; indeed, I was too well pleased
with it to resist him much.
However, as it were, tired with
that kind of work, we sat down, and there he talked with me a great
while; he said he was charmed
with me, and that he could not
rest night or day till he had told me how he was in love with me,
and, if I was able to love him again, and would make him happy, I
should be the saving of his life, and many such fine things. I said
little to him again, but easily discovered that I was a fool, and
that I did not in the least perceive what he meant.
Then he walked about the room,
and taking me by the hand, I walked with him; and by and by, taking
his advantage, he threw me down upon the bed, and kissed me there
most violently; but, to give him his due, offered no manner of
rudeness to me, only kissed a great while. After this he thought he
had heard somebody come upstairs, so got off from the bed, lifted
me up, professing a great deal of love for me, but told me it was
all an honest affection, and that he meant no ill to me; and with
that he put five guineas into my hand, and went away
downstairs.
I was more confounded with the
money than I was before with the love, and began to be so elevated
that I scarce knew the ground I stood on. I am the more particular
in this part, that if my story comes to be read by any innocent
young body, they may learn from it to guard themselves against the
mischiefs which attend an early knowledge of their own beauty. If a
young woman once thinks herself handsome, she never doubts the
truth of any man that tells her he is in love with her; for if she
believes herself charming enough to captivate him, 'tis natural to
expect the effects of it.
This young gentleman had fired
his inclination as much as he had my vanity, and, as if he had
found that he had an opportunity and was sorry he did not take hold
of it, he comes up again in half an hour or thereabouts, and falls
to work with me again as before, only with a little less
introduction.
And first, when he entered the
room, he turned about and shut the door. 'Mrs. Betty,' said he, 'I
fancied before somebody was coming upstairs, but it was not so;
however,' adds he, 'if they find me in the room with you, they
shan't catch me a-kissing of you.' I told him I did not know who
should be coming upstairs, for I believed there was nobody in the
house but the cook and the other maid, and they never came up those
stairs. 'Well, my dear,' says he, ''tis good to be sure, however';
and so he sits down, and we began to
talk. And now, though I was still
all on fire with his first visit, and said little, he did as it
were put words in my mouth, telling me how passionately he loved
me, and that though he could not mention such a thing till he came
to this estate, yet he was resolved to make me happy then, and
himself too; that is to say, to marry me, and abundance of such
fine things, which I, poor fool, did not understand the drift of,
but acted as if there was no such thing as any kind of love but
that which tended to matrimony; and if he had spoke of that, I had
no room, as well as no power, to have said no; but we were not come
that length yet.
We had not sat long, but he got
up, and, stopping my very breath with kisses, threw me upon the bed
again; but then being both well warmed, he went farther with me
than decency permits me to mention, nor had it been in my power to
have denied him at that moment, had he offered much more than he
did.
However, though he took these
freedoms with me, it did not go to that which they call the last
favour, which, to do him justice, he did not attempt; and he made
that self-denial of his a plea for all his freedoms with me upon
other occasions after this. When this was over, he stayed but a
little while, but he put almost a handful of gold in my hand, and
left me, making a thousand protestations of his passion for me, and
of his loving me above all the women in the world.
It will not be strange if I now
began to think, but alas! it was but with very little solid
reflection. I had a most unbounded stock of vanity and pride, and
but a very little stock of virtue. I did indeed case sometimes with
myself what young master aimed at, but thought of nothing but the
fine words and the gold; whether he intended to marry me, or not to
marry me, seemed a matter of no great consequence to me; nor did my
thoughts so much as suggest to me the necessity of making any
capitulation for myself, till he came to make a kind of formal
proposal to me, as you shall hear presently.
Thus I gave up myself to a
readiness of being ruined without the least concern and am a fair
memento to all young women whose vanity prevails over their virtue.
Nothing was ever so stupid on both sides. Had I acted as became me,
and resisted as virtue and
honour require, this gentleman
had either desisted his attacks, finding no room to expect the
accomplishment of his design, or had made fair and honourable
proposals of marriage; in which case, whoever had blamed him,
nobody could have blamed me. In short, if he had known me, and how
easy the trifle he aimed at was to be had, he would have troubled
his head no farther, but have given me four or five guineas, and
have lain with me the next time he had come at me. And if I had
known his thoughts, and how hard he thought I would be to be
gained, I might have made my own terms with him; and if I had not
capitulated for an immediate marriage, I might for a maintenance
till marriage, and might have had what I would; for he was already
rich to excess, besides what he had in expectation; but I seemed
wholly to have abandoned all such thoughts as these, and was taken
up only with the pride of my beauty, and of being beloved by such a
gentleman. As for the gold, I spent whole hours in looking upon it;
I told the guineas over and over a thousand times a day. Never poor
vain creature was so wrapt up with every part of the story as I
was, not considering what was before me, and how near my ruin was
at the door; indeed, I think I rather wished for that ruin than
studied to avoid it.
In the meantime, however, I was
cunning enough not to give the least room to any in the family to
suspect me, or to imagine that I had the least correspondence with
this young gentleman. I scarce ever looked towards him in public,
or answered if he spoke to me when anybody was near us; but for all
that, we had every now and then a little encounter, where we had
room for a word or two, an now and then a kiss, but no fair
opportunity for the mischief intended; and especially considering
that he made more circumlocution than, if he had known by thoughts,
he had occasion for; and the work appearing difficult to him, he
really made it so.
But as the devil is an unwearied
tempter, so he never fails to find opportunity for that wickedness
he invites to. It was one evening that I was in the garden, with
his two younger sisters and himself, and all very innocently merry,
when he found means to convey a note into my hand, by which he
directed me to understand that he would to-morrow desire me
publicly to go of an errand for him into the town, and that I
should see him somewhere by the way.
Accordingly, after dinner, he
very gravely says to me, his sisters being all by, 'Mrs. Betty, I
must ask a favour of you.' 'What's that?' says his second sister.
'Nay, sister,' says he very gravely, 'if you can't spare Mrs. Betty
to-day, any other time will do.' Yes, they said, they could spare
her well enough, and the sister begged pardon for asking, which
they did but of mere course, without any meaning. 'Well, but,
brother,' says the eldest sister, 'you must tell Mrs. Betty what it
is; if it be any private business that we must not hear, you may
call her out. There she is.' 'Why, sister,' says the gentleman very
gravely, 'what do you mean? I only desire her to go into the High
Street' (and then he pulls out a turnover), 'to such a shop'; and
then he tells them a long story of two fine neckcloths he had bid
money for, and he wanted to have me go and make an errand to buy a
neck to the turnover that he showed, to see if they would take my
money for the neckcloths; to bid a shilling more, and haggle with
them; and then he made more errands, and so continued to have such
petty business to do, that I should be sure to stay a good
while.
When he had given me my errands,
he told them a long story of a visit he was going to make to a
family they all knew, and where was to be such-and-such gentlemen,
and how merry they were to be, and very formally asks his sisters
to go with him, and they as formally excused themselves, because of
company that they had notice was to come and visit them that
afternoon; which, by the way, he had contrived on purpose.
He had scarce done speaking to
them, and giving me my errand, but his man came up to tell him that
Sir W—— H——'s coach stopped at the door; so he runs down, and comes
up again immediately. 'Alas!' says he aloud, 'there's all my mirth
spoiled at once; sir W—— has sent his coach for me, and desires to
speak with me upon some earnest business.' It seems this Sir W——
was a gentleman who lived about three miles out of town, to whom he
had spoken on purpose the day before, to lend him his chariot for a
particular occasion, and had appointed it to call for him, as it
did, about three o'clock.
Immediately he calls for his best
wig, hat, and sword, and ordering his man to go to the other place
to make his excuse— that was to say, he made an excuse to send his
man away—he prepares
to go into the coach. As he was
going, he stopped a while, and speaks mighty earnestly to me about
his business, and finds an opportunity to say very softly to me,
'Come away, my dear, as soon as ever you can.' I said nothing, but
made a curtsy, as if I had done so to what he said in public. In
about a quarter of an hour I went out too; I had no dress other
than before, except that I had a hood, a mask, a fan, and a pair of
gloves in my pocket; so that there was not the least suspicion in
the house. He waited for me in the coach in a back-lane, which he
knew I must pass by, and had directed the coachman whither to go,
which was to a certain place, called Mile End, where lived a
confidant of his, where we went in, and where was all the
convenience in the world to be as wicked as we pleased.
When we were together he began to
talk very gravely to me, and to tell me he did not bring me there
to betray me; that his passion for me would not suffer him to abuse
me; that he resolved to marry me as soon as he came to his estate;
that in the meantime, if I would grant his request, he would
maintain me very honourably; and made me a thousand protestations
of his sincerity and of his affection to me; and that he would
never abandon me, and as I may say, made a thousand more preambles
than he need to have done.
However, as he pressed me to
speak, I told him I had no reason to question the sincerity of his
love to me after so many protestations, but—and there I stopped, as
if I left him to guess the rest. 'But what, my dear?' says he. 'I
guess what you mean: what if you should be with child? Is not that
it? Why, then,' says he, 'I'll take care of you and provide for
you, and the child too; and that you may see I am not in jest,'
says he, 'here's an earnest for you,' and with that he pulls out a
silk purse, with an hundred guineas in it, and gave it me. 'And
I'll give you such another,' says he, 'every year till I marry
you.'
My colour came and went, at the
sight of the purse and with the fire of his proposal together, so
that I could not say a word, and he easily perceived it; so putting
the purse into my bosom, I made no more resistance to him, but let
him do just what he pleased, and as often as he pleased; and thus I
finished my own destruction at once, for from this day, being
forsaken of my virtue and my modesty, I
had nothing of value left to
recommend me, either to God's blessing or man's assistance.
But things did not end here. I
went back to the town, did the business he publicly directed me to,
and was at home before anybody thought me long. As for my
gentleman, he stayed out, as he told me he would, till late at
night, and there was not the least suspicion in the family either
on his account or on mine.
We had, after this, frequent
opportunities to repeat our crime — chiefly by his
contrivance—especially at home, when his mother and the young
ladies went abroad a-visiting, which he watched so narrowly as
never to miss; knowing always beforehand when they went out, and
then failed not to catch me all alone, and securely enough; so that
we took our fill of our wicked pleasure for near half a year; and
yet, which was the most to my satisfaction, I was not with
child.
But before this half-year was
expired, his younger brother, of whom I have made some mention in
the beginning of the story, falls to work with me; and he, finding
me alone in the garden one evening, begins a story of the same kind
to me, made good honest professions of being in love with me, and
in short, proposes fairly and honourably to marry me, and that
before he made any other offer to me at all.
I was now confounded, and driven
to such an extremity as the like was never known; at least not to
me. I resisted the proposal with obstinacy; and now I began to arm
myself with arguments. I laid before him the inequality of the
match; the treatment I should meet with in the family; the
ingratitude it would be to his good father and mother, who had
taken me into their house upon such generous principles, and when I
was in such a low condition; and, in short, I said everything to
dissuade him from his design that I could imagine, except telling
him the truth, which would indeed have put an end to it all, but
that I durst not think of mentioning.
But here happened a circumstance
that I did not expect indeed, which put me to my shifts; for this
young gentleman, as he was plain and honest, so he pretended to
nothing with me but what was so too; and, knowing his own
innocence, he was not so careful to
make his having a kindness for
Mrs. Betty a secret I the house, as his brother was. And though he
did not let them know that he had talked to me about it, yet he
said enough to let his sisters perceive he loved me, and his mother
saw it too, which, though they took no notice of it to me, yet they
did to him, an immediately I found their carriage to me altered,
more than ever before.
I saw the cloud, though I did not
foresee the storm. It was easy, I say, to see that their carriage
to me was altered, and that it grew worse and worse every day; till
at last I got information among the servants that I should, in a
very little while, be desired to remove.
I was not alarmed at the news,
having a full satisfaction that I should be otherwise provided for;
and especially considering that I had reason every day to expect I
should be with child, and that then I should be obliged to remove
without any pretences for it.
After some time the younger
gentleman took an opportunity to tell me that the kindness he had
for me had got vent in the family. He did not charge me with it, he
said, for he know well enough which way it came out. He told me his
plain way of talking had been the occasion of it, for that he did
not make his respect for me so much a secret as he might have done,
and the reason was, that he was at a point, that if I would consent
to have him, he would tell them all openly that he loved me, and
that he intended to marry me; that it was true his father and
mother might resent it, and be unkind, but that he was now in a way
to live, being bred to the law, and he did not fear maintaining me
agreeable to what I should expect; and that, in short, as he
believed I would not be ashamed of him, so he was resolved not to
be ashamed of me, and that he scorned to be afraid to own me now,
whom he resolved to own after I was his wife, and therefore I had
nothing to do but to give him my hand, and he would answer for all
the rest.
I was now in a dreadful condition
indeed, and now I repented heartily my easiness with the eldest
brother; not from any reflection of conscience, but from a view of
the happiness I might have enjoyed, and had now made impossible;
for though I had no great scruples of conscience, as I have said,
to struggle with, yet I could not think of being a whore to one
brother and a wife to the other. But then it came into my thoughts
that the first brother had
promised to made me his wife when
he came to his estate; but I presently remembered what I had often
thought of, that he had never spoken a word of having me for a wife
after he had conquered me for a mistress; and indeed, till now,
though I said I thought of it often, yet it gave me no disturbance
at all, for as he did not seem in the least to lessen his affection
to me, so neither did he lessen his bounty, though he had the
discretion himself to desire me not to lay out a penny of what he
gave me in clothes, or to make the least show extraordinary,
because it would necessarily give jealousy in the family, since
everybody know I could come at such things no manner of ordinary
way, but by some private friendship, which they would presently
have suspected.
But I was now in a great strait,
and knew not what to do. The main difficulty was this: the younger
brother not only laid close siege to me, but suffered it to be
seen. He would come into his sister's room, and his mother's room,
and sit down, and talk a thousand kind things of me, and to me,
even before their faces, and when they were all there. This grew so
public that the whole house talked of it, and his mother reproved
him for it, and their carriage to me appeared quite altered. In
short, his mother had let fall some speeches, as if she intended to
put me out of the family; that is, in English, to turn me out of
doors. Now I was sure this could not be a secret to his brother,
only that he might not think, as indeed nobody else yet did, that
the youngest brother had made any proposal to me about it; but as I
easily could see that it would go farther, so I saw likewise there
was an absolute necessity to speak of it to him, or that he would
speak of it to me, and which to do first I knew not; that is,
whether I should break it to him or let it alone till he should
break it to me.
Upon serious consideration, for
indeed now I began to consider things very seriously, and never
till now; I say, upon serious consideration, I resolved to tell him
of it first; and it was not long before I had an opportunity, for
the very next day his brother went to London upon some business,
and the family being out a-visiting, just as it had happened
before, and as indeed was often the case, he came according to his
custom, to spend an hour or two with Mrs. Betty.
When he came had had sat down a
while, he easily perceived there was an alteration in my
countenance, that I was not so free and pleasant with him as I used
to be, and particularly, that I had been a- crying; he was not long
before he took notice of it, and asked me in very kind terms what
was the matter, and if anything troubled me. I would have put it
off if I could, but it was not to be concealed; so after suffering
many importunities to draw that out of me which I longed as much as
possible to disclose, I told him that it was true something did
trouble me, and something of such a nature that I could not conceal
from him, and yet that I could not tell how to tell him of it
neither; that it was a thing that not only surprised me, but
greatly perplexed me, and that I knew not what course to take,
unless he would direct me. He told me with great tenderness, that
let it be what it would, I should not let it trouble me, for he
would protect me from all the world.
I then began at a distance, and
told him I was afraid the ladies had got some secret information of
our correspondence; for that it was easy to see that their conduct
was very much changed towards me for a great while, and that now it
was come to that pass that they frequently found fault with me, and
sometimes fell quite out with me, though I never gave them the
least occasion; that whereas I used always to lie with the eldest
sister, I was lately put to lie by myself, or with one of the
maids; and that I had overheard them several times talking very
unkindly about me; but that which confirmed it all was, that one of
the servants had told me that she had heard I was to be turned out,
and that it was not safe for the family that I should be any longer
in the house.
He smiled when he herd all this,
and I asked him how he could make so light of it, when he must
needs know that if there was any discovery I was undone for ever,
and that even it would hurt him, though not ruin him as it would
me. I upbraided him, that he was like all the rest of the sex,
that, when they had the character and honour of a woman at their
mercy, oftentimes made it their jest, and at least looked upon it
as a trifle, and counted the ruin of those they had had their will
of as a thing of no value.
He saw me warm and serious, and
he changed his style immediately; he told me he was sorry I should
have such a thought
of him; that he had never given
me the least occasion for it, but had been as tender of my
reputation as he could be of his own; that he was sure our
correspondence had been managed with so much address, that not one
creature in the family had so much as a suspicion of it; that if he
smiled when I told him my thoughts, it was at the assurance he
lately received, that our understanding one another was not so much
as known or guessed at; and that when he had told me how much
reason he had to be easy, I should smile as he did, for he was very
certain it would give me a full satisfaction.
'This is a mystery I cannot
understand,' says I, 'or how it should be to my satisfaction that I
am to be turned out of doors; for if our correspondence is not
discovered, I know not what else I have done to change the
countenances of the whole family to me, or to have them treat me as
they do now, who formerly used me with so much tenderness, as if I
had been one of their own children.'
'Why, look you, child,' says he,
'that they are uneasy about you, that is true; but that they have
the least suspicion of the case as it is, and as it respects you
and I, is so far from being true, that they suspect my brother
Robin; and, in short, they are fully persuaded he makes love to
you; nay, the fool has put it into their heads too himself, for he
is continually bantering them about it, and making a jest of
himself. I confess I think he is wrong to do so, because he cannot
but see it vexes them, and makes them unkind to you; but 'tis a
satisfaction to me, because of the assurance it gives me, that they
do not suspect me in the least, and I hope this will be to your
satisfaction too.'
'So it is,' says I, 'one way; but
this does not reach my case at all, nor is this the chief thing
that troubles me, though I have been concerned about that too.'
'What is it, then?' says he. With which I fell to tears, and could
say nothing to him at all. He strove to pacify me all he could, but
began at last to be very pressing upon me to tell what it was. At
last I answered that I thought I ought to tell him too, and that he
had some right to know it; besides, that I wanted his direction in
the case, for I was in such perplexity that I knew not what course
to take, and then I related the whole affair to him. I told him how
imprudently his brother had managed himself, in making himself so
public; for that if he had kept it a secret, as such a thing
out to have been, I could but
have denied him positively, without giving any reason for it, and
he would in time have ceased his solicitations; but that he had the
vanity, first, to depend upon it that I would not deny him, and
then had taken the freedom to tell his resolution of having me to
the whole house.
I told him how far I had resisted
him, and told him how sincere and honourable his offers were.
'But,' says I, 'my case will be doubly hard; for as they carry it
ill to me now, because he desires to have me, they'll carry it
worse when they shall find I have denied him; and they will
presently say, there's something else in it, and then out it comes
that I am married already to somebody else, or that I would never
refuse a match so much above me as this was.'
This discourse surprised him
indeed very much. He told me that it was a critical point indeed
for me to manage, and he did not see which way I should get out of
it; but he would consider it, and let me know next time we met,
what resolution he was come to about it; and in the meantime
desired I would not give my consent to his brother, nor yet give
him a flat denial, but that I would hold him in suspense a
while.