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I was born, as my friends told me, at the city of Poitiers, in the province or county of Poitou in France, from whence I was brought to England by my parents, who fled for their religion about the year 1683, when the Protestants were banished from France by the cruelty of their persecutors.
I, who knew little or nothing of what I was brought over hither for, was well enough pleased with being here. London, a large and gay city, took with me mighty well, who from my being a child loved a crowd and to see a great many fine folks.
I retained nothing of France but the language. My father and mother, being people of better fashion than ordinarily the people called refugees at that time were, and having fled early while it was easy to secure their effects, had, before their coming over, remitted considerable sums of money, or, as I remember, a considerable value in French brandy, paper, and other goods; and these selling very much to advantage here, my father was in very good circumstances at his coming over, so that he was far from applying to the rest of our nation that were here for countenance and relief. On the contrary, he had his door continually thronged with miserable objects of the poor starving creatures, who at that time fled hither for shelter on account of conscience or something else.
I have indeed heard my father say that he was pestered with a great many of those who for any religion they had might e'en have stayed where they were, but who flocked over hither in droves for what they call in English a livelihood; hearing with what open arms the refugees were received in England, and how they fell readily into business, being by the charitable assistance of the people in London encouraged to work in their manufactures, in Spitalfields, Canterbury, and other places, and that they had a much better price for their work than in France and the like.
My father, I say, told me that he was more pestered with the clamours of these people than of those who were truly refugees and fled in distress merely for conscience.
I was about ten years old when I was brought over hither, where, as I have said, my father lived in very good circumstances and died in about eleven years more; in which time, as I had accomplished myself for the sociable part of the world, so I had acquainted myself with some of our English neighbours, as is the custom in London; and as, while I was young, I had picked up three or four play-fellows and companions suitable to my years, so as we grew bigger we learnt to call one another intimates and friends, and this forwarded very much the finishing me for conversation and the world.
I went to English schools, and, being young, I learnt the English tongue perfectly well, with all the customs of the English young women; so that I retained nothing of the French but the speech, nor did I so much as keep any remains of the French language tagged to my way of speaking, as most foreigners do, but spoke what we call natural English, as if I had been born here.
Being to give my own character, I must be excused to give it as impartially as possible, and as if I was speaking of another body; and the sequel will leave you to judge whether I flatter myself or no.
I was (speaking of myself as about fourteen years of age) tall and very well made, sharp as a hawk in matters of common knowledge, quick and smart in discourse, apt to be satirical, full of repartee, and a little too forward in conversation; or, as we call it in English, bold, though perfectly modest in my behaviour. Being French born, I danced, as some say, naturally, loved it extremely, and sang well also; and so well, that, as you will hear, it was afterwards some advantage to me. With all these things, I wanted neither wit, beauty, nor money. In this manner I set out into the world, having all the advantages that any young woman could desire to recommend me to others and form a prospect of happy living to myself.
At about fifteen years of age my father gave me, as he called it in French, 25,000 livres, that is to say, two thousand pounds portion, and married me to an eminent brewer in the City. Pardon me if I conceal his name, for though he was the foundation of my ruin, I cannot take so severe a revenge upon him.
With this thing called a husband I lived eight years in good fashion, and for some part of the time kept a coach; that is to say, a kind of mock coach, for all the week the horses were kept at work in the dray carts, but on Sunday I had the privilege to go abroad in my chariot, either to church or otherwise, as my husband and I could agree about it; which, by the way, was not very often. But of that hereafter.
Before I proceed in the history of the married part of my life, you must allow me to give as impartial an account of my husband as I have done of myself. He was a jolly, handsome fellow as any woman need wish for a companion, tall and well made, rather a little too large, but not so as to be ungenteel; he danced well, which I think was the first thing that brought us together. He had an old father who managed the business carefully, so that he had little of that part laid on him but now and then to appear and show himself; and he took the advantage of it, for he troubled himself very little about it, but went abroad, kept company, hunted much, and loved it exceedingly.
After I have told you that he was a handsome man and a good sportsman, I have indeed said all; and unhappy was I--like other young people of our sex, I chose him for being a handsome, jolly fellow, as I have said--for he was otherwise a weak, empty-headed, untaught creature as any woman could ever desire to be coupled with. And here I must take the liberty, whatever I have to reproach myself with in my after conduct, to turn to my fellow creatures, the young ladies of this country, and speak to them by way of precaution. If you have any regard to your future happiness, any view of living comfortably with a husband, any hope of preserving your fortunes or restoring them after any disaster, never, ladies, marry a fool. Any husband rather than a fool. With some other husbands you may be unhappy, but with a fool you will be miserable; with another husband you may, I say, be unhappy, but with a fool you must; nay, if he would, he cannot make you easy, everything he does is so awkward, everything he says is so empty, a woman of any sense cannot but be surfeited and sick of him twenty times a day. What is more shocking than for a woman to bring a handsome, comely fellow of a husband into company and then be obliged to blush for him every time she hears him speak; to hear other gentlemen talk sense and he able to say nothing, and so look like a fool; or, which is worse, hear him talk nonsense and be laughed at for a fool?
In the next place, there are so many sorts of fools, such an infinite variety of fools, and so hard it is to know the worst of the kind, that I am obliged to say, no fool, ladies, at all, no kind of fool; whether a mad fool or a sober fool, a wise fool or a silly fool, take anything but a fool; nay, be anything, be even an old maid, the worst of nature's curses, rather than take up with a fool.
But to leave this awhile, for I shall have occasion to speak of it again, my case was particularly hard, for I had a variety of foolish things complicated in this unhappy match.
First, and which I must confess is very unsufferable, he was a conceited fool, tout opiniâtre; everything he said was right, was best, and was to the purpose, whoever was in company and whatever was advanced by others, though with the greatest modesty imaginable. And yet when he came to defend what he had said by argument and reason, he would do it so weakly, so emptily, and so nothing to the purpose, that it was enough to make anybody that heard him sick and ashamed of him.
Secondly, he was positive and obstinate, and the most positive in the most simple and inconsistent things such as were intolerable to bear.
These two articles, if there had been no more, qualified him to be a most unbearable creature for a husband, and so it may be supposed at first sight what kind of life I led with him. However, I did as well as I could and held my tongue, which was the only victory I gained over him; for when he would talk after his own empty rattling way with me, and I would not answer or enter into discourse with him on the point he was upon, he would rise up in the greatest passion imaginable and go away, which was the cheapest way I had to be delivered.
I could enlarge here much upon the method I took to make my life passable and easy with the most incorrigible temper in the world, but it is too long and the articles too trifling. I shall mention some of them as the circumstances I am to relate shall necessarily bring them in.
After I had been married about four years my own father died, my mother having been dead before. He liked my match so ill, and saw so little room to be satisfied with the conduct of my husband, that though he left me 5,000 livres and more at his death, yet he left it in the hands of my elder brother, who, running on too rashly in his adventures as a merchant, failed, and lost not only what he had but what he had for me too, as you shall hear presently.
Thus I lost the last gift of my father's bounty by having a husband not fit to be trusted with it; there's one of the benefits of marrying a fool!
Within two years after my own father's death my husband's father also died, and, as I thought, left him a considerable addition to his estate; the whole trade of the brewhouse, which was a very good one, being now his own.
But this addition to his stock was his ruin, for he had no genius to business. He had no knowledge of his accounts; he bustled a little about it indeed at first, and put on a face of business, but he soon grew slack. It was below him to inspect his books, he committed all that to his clerks and book-keepers, and while he found money in cash to pay the maltman and the excise, and put some in his pocket, he was perfectly easy and indolent, let the main chance go how it would.
I foresaw the consequences of this, and attempted several times to persuade him to apply himself to his business. I put him in mind how his customers complained of the neglect of his servants on one hand, and how abundance broke in his debt, on the other hand, for want of the clerk's care to secure him, and the like; but he thrust me by, either with hard words or fraudulently with representing the cases otherwise than they were.
However, to cut short a dull story which ought not to be long, he began to find his trade sunk, his stock declined, and that, in short, he could not carry on his business; and once or twice his brewing utensils were extended for the excise, and the last time he was put to great extremities to clear them.
This alarmed him, and he resolved to lay down his trade, which indeed I was not sorry for; foreseeing that if he did not lay it down in time, he would be forced to do it another way, namely, as a bankrupt. Also, I was willing he should draw out while he had something left, lest I should come to be stripped at home and be turned out of doors with my children, for I had now five children by him: the only work (perhaps) that fools are good for.
I thought myself happy when he got another man to take his brewhouse clear off his hands; for, paying down a large sum of money, my husband found himself a clear man, all his debts paid, and with between two and three thousand pounds in his pocket. And being now obliged to remove from the brewhouse, we took a house at ----, a village about two miles out of town; and happy I thought myself, all things considered, that I was got off clear upon so good terms, and had my handsome fellow had but one capful of wit, I had been still well enough.
I proposed to him either to buy some place with the money or with part of it, and offered to join my part to it, which was then in being and might have been secured; so we might have lived tolerably, at least, during his life. But as it is the part of a fool to be void of counsel, so he neglected it, lived on as he did before, kept his horses and men, rode every day out to the forest a-hunting, and nothing was done all this while. But the money decreased apace, and I thought I saw my ruin hastening on without any possible way to prevent it.
I was not wanting with all that persuasions and entreaties could perform, but it was all fruitless; representing to him how fast our money wasted, and what would be our condition when it was gone, made no impression on him; but like one stupid he went on, not valuing all that tears and lamentations could be supposed to do, nor did he abate his figure or equipage, his horses or servants, even to the last, till he had not a hundred pounds left in the whole world.
It was not above three years that all the ready money was thus spending off; yet he spent it, as I may say, foolishly too, for he kept no valuable company neither, but generally with huntsmen and horse-coursers, and men meaner than himself, which is another consequence of a man's being a fool. Such can never take delight in men more wise and capable than themselves; and that makes them converse with scoundrels, drink belch with porters, and keep company always below themselves.
This was my wretched condition, when one morning my husband told me he was sensible he was come to a miserable condition and he would go and seek his fortune somewhere or other. He had said something to that purpose several times before that, upon my pressing him to consider his circumstances and the circumstances of his family before it should be too late. But as I found he had no meaning in anything of that kind, as indeed he had not much in anything he ever said, so I thought they were but words of course now. When he said he would be gone, I used to wish secretly, and even say in my thoughts, "I wish you would, for if you go on thus you will starve us all."
He stayed, however, at home all that day, and lay at home that night. Early the next morning he gets out of bed, goes to a window which looked out towards the stables, and sounds his French horn, as he called it, which was his usual signal to call his men to go out a-hunting.
It was about the latter end of August, and so was light yet at five o'clock, and it was about that time that I heard him and his two men go out and shut the yard gates after them. He said nothing to me more than as usual when he used to go out upon his sport; neither did I rise or say anything to him that was material, but went to sleep again after he was gone for two hours or thereabouts.
It must be a little surprising to the reader to tell him at once that after this I never saw my husband more; but to go further, I not only never saw him more, but I never heard from him or of him, neither of any or either of his two servants or of the horses, either what became of them, where or which way they went, or what they did or intended to do, no more than if the ground had opened and swallowed them all up, and nobody had known it, except as hereafter.
I was not for the first night or two at all surprised, no, nor very much the first week or two, believing that if anything evil had befallen them I should soon enough have heard of that, and also knowing that as he had two servants and three horses with him, it would be the strangest thing in the world that anything could befall them all, but that I must some time or other hear of them.
But you will easily allow that as time ran on a week, two weeks, a month, two months, and so on, I was dreadfully frighted at last, and the more when I looked into my own circumstances and considered the condition in which I was left; with five children and not one farthing subsistence for them, other than about seventy pounds in money and what few things of value I had about me, which, though considerable in themselves, were yet nothing to feed a family, and for a length of time too.
What to do I knew not, nor to whom to have recourse; to keep in the house where I was I could not, the rent being too great, and to leave it without his order, if my husband should return, I could not think of that neither; so that I continued extremely perplexed, melancholy, and discouraged to the last degree.
I remained in this dejected condition near a twelve-month. My husband had two sisters, who were married and lived very well, and some other near relations that I knew of and I hoped would do something for me, and I frequently sent to these to know if they could give me any account of my vagrant creature; but they all declared to me in answer that they knew nothing about him, and, after frequent sending, began to think me troublesome, and to let me know they thought so too by their treating my maid with very slight and unhandsome returns to her enquiries.
This grated hard and added to my affliction, but I had no recourse but to my tears, for I had not a friend of my own left me in the world. I should have observed that it was about half a year before this elopement of my husband that the disaster I mentioned above befell my brother, who broke, and that in such bad circumstances that I had the mortification to hear not only that he was in prison, but that there would be little or nothing to be had by way of composition.
Misfortunes seldom come alone. This was the forerunner of my husband's flight, and as my expectations were cut off on that side, my husband gone, and my family of children on my hands and nothing to subsist them, my condition was the most deplorable that words can express.
I had some plate and some jewels, as might be supposed, my fortune and former circumstances considered, and my husband, who had never stayed to be distressed, had not been put to the necessity of rifling me, as husbands usually do in such cases. But as I had seen an end of all the ready money during the long time I had lived in a state of expectation for my husband, so I began to make away one thing after another, till those few things of value which I had began to lessen apace, and I saw nothing but misery and the utmost distress before me, even to have my children starve before my face. I leave any one that is a mother of children, and has lived in plenty and good fashion, to consider and reflect what must be my condition. As to my husband, I had now no hope or expectation of seeing him any more, and indeed, if I had, he was the man of all the men in the world the least able to help me, or to have turned his hand to the gaining one shilling towards lessening our distress. He neither had the capacity nor the inclination; he could have been no clerk, for he scarce wrote a legible hand; he was so far from being able to write sense, that he could not make sense of what others wrote; he was so far from understanding good English, that he could not spell good English. To be out of all business was his delight, and he would stand leaning against a post for half an hour together, with pipe in his mouth, with all the tranquillity in the world, smoking, like Dryden's countryman that whistled as he went, for want of thought; and this even when his family was, as it were, starving, that little he had wasting, and that we were all bleeding to death, he not knowing, and as little considering, where to get another shilling when the last was spent.
This being his temper and the extent of his capacity, I confess I did not see so much loss in his parting with me as at first I thought I did, though it was hard and cruel to the last degree in him not giving me the least notice of his design; and indeed, that which I was most astonished at was that, seeing he must certainly have intended this excursion some few moments at least before he put it in practice, yet he did not come and take what little stock of money we had left, or at least a share of it, to bear his expense for a little while; but he did not, and I am morally certain he had not five guineas with him in the world when he went away. All that I could come to the knowledge of about him was that he left his hunting horn, which he called the French horn, in the stable, and his hunting saddle, went away in a handsome furniture as they call it, which he used sometimes to travel with, having an embroidered housing, a case of pistols, and other things belonging to them; and one of his servants had another saddle with pistols, though plain, and the other a long gun; so that they did not go out as sportsmen, but rather as travellers. What part of the world they went to I never heard for many years.
As I have said, I sent to his relations, but they sent me short and surly answers; nor did any one of them offer to come to see me or to see the children, or so much as to enquire after them, well perceiving that I was in a condition that was likely to be soon troublesome to them. But it was no time now to dally with them or with the world. I left off sending to them and went myself among them, laid my circumstances open to them, told them my whole case and the condition I was reduced to, begged they would advise me what course to take, laid myself as low as they could desire, and entreated them to consider that I was not in a condition to help myself, and that without some assistance we must all inevitably perish. I told them that if I had but one child, or two children, I would have done my endeavour to have worked for them with my needle, and should only have come to them to beg them to help me to some work, that I might get our bread by my labour; but to think of one single woman not bred to work, and at a loss where to get employment, to get the bread of five children, that was not possible, some of my children being young too, and none of them big enough to help one another.
It was all one; I received not one farthing of assistance from anybody, was hardly asked to sit down at the two sisters' houses, nor offered to eat or drink at two more near relations. The fifth, an ancient gentlewoman, aunt-in-law to my husband, a widow, and the least able also of any of the rest, did indeed ask me to sit down, gave me a dinner, and refreshed me with a kinder treatment than any of the rest, but added the melancholy part, viz. that she would have helped me, but that indeed she was not able; which, however, I was satisfied was very true.
Here I relieved myself with the constant assistant of the afflicted, I mean tears; for, relating to her how I was received by the other of my husband's relations, it made me burst into tears, and I cried vehemently for a great while together, till I made the good old gentlewoman cry too several times.
However, I came home from them all without any relief, and went on at home till I was reduced to such inexpressible distress, that it is not to be described. I had been several times after this at the old aunt's, for I prevailed with her to promise me to go and talk with the other relations; at least, that if possible she could bring some of them to take off the children or to contribute something towards their maintenance; and to do her justice, she did use her endeavour with them, but all was to no purpose, they would do nothing, at least that way. I think, with much entreaty, she obtained by a kind of collection among them all, about eleven or twelve shillings in money, which, though it was a present comfort, was yet not to be named as capable to deliver me from any part of the load that lay upon me.
There was a poor woman that had been a kind of a dependent upon our family, and who I had often, among the rest of the relations, been very kind to. My maid put it into my head one morning to send to this poor woman and to see whether she might not be able to help in this dreadful case.
I must remember it here, to the praise of this poor girl, my maid, that though I was not able to give her any wages, and had told her so, nay, I was not able to pay her the wages that I was in arrears to her, yet she would not leave me; nay, and as long as she had any money when I had none, she would help me out of her own; for which, though I acknowledged her kindness and fidelity, yet it was but a bad coin that she was paid in at last, as will appear in its place.
Amy (for that was her name) put it into my thoughts to send for this poor woman to come to me, for I was now in great distress, and I resolved to do so; but just the very morning that I intended it, the old aunt, with the poor woman in her company, came to see me. The good old gentlewoman was, it seems, heartily concerned for me, and had been talking again among those people, to see what she could do for me, but to very little purpose.
You shall judge a little of my present distress by the posture she found me in. I had five little children, the eldest was under ten years old, and I had not a shilling in the house to buy them victuals, but had sent Amy out with a silver spoon to sell it and bring home something from the butcher's, and I was in a parlour, sitting on the ground with a great heap of old rags, linen, and other things about me, looking them over to see if I had anything among them that would sell or pawn for a little money, and had been crying ready to burst myself to think what I should do next.
At this juncture they knocked at the door. I thought it had been Amy, so I did not rise up, but one of the children opened the door and they came directly into the room where I was, and where they found me in that posture and crying vehemently, as above. I was surprised at their coming, you may be sure, especially seeing the person I had but just before resolved to send for. But when they saw me, how I looked, for my eyes were swelled with crying, and what a condition I was in as to the house and the heaps of things that were about me, and especially when I told them what I was doing and on what occasion, they sat down, like Job's three comforters, and said not one word to me for a great while, but both of them cried as fast and as heartily as I did.
The truth was, there was no need of much discourse in the case, the thing spoke for itself. They saw me in rags and dirt, who was but a little before riding in my coach; thin, and looking almost like one starved, who was before fat and beautiful. The house, that was before handsomely furnished with pictures and ornaments, cabinets, pier-glasses, and everything suitable, was now stripped and naked, most of the goods having been seized by the landlord for rent or sold to buy necessaries. In a word, all was misery and distress, the face of ruin was everywhere to be seen; we had eaten up almost everything, and little remained, unless, like one of the pitiful women of Jerusalem, I should eat up my very children themselves.
After these two good creatures had sat, as I say, in silence some time, and had then looked about them, my maid Amy came in and brought with her a small breast of mutton and two great bunches of turnips, which she intended to stew for our dinner. As for me, my heart was so overwhelmed at seeing these two friends, for such they were, though poor, and at their seeing me in such a condition, that I fell into another violent fit of crying; so that, in short, I could not speak to them again for a great while longer.
During my being in such an agony they went to my maid Amy at another part of the same room, and talked with her. Amy told them all my circumstances, and set them forth in such moving terms and so to the life, that I could not upon any terms have done it like her myself; and, in a word, affected them both with it in such a manner, that the old aunt came to me, and though hardly able to speak for tears, "Look ye, cousin," said she in a few words, "things must not stand thus; some course must be taken, and that forthwith. Pray, where were these children born?" I told her the parish where we lived before; that four of them were born there and one in the house where I now was, where the landlord, after having seized my goods for the rent past, not then knowing my circumstances, had now given me leave to live for a whole year more without any rent, being moved with compassion, but that this year was now almost expired.
Upon hearing this account they came to this resolution: that the children should be all carried by them to the door of one of the relations mentioned above and be set down there by the maid Amy, and that I, the mother, should remove for some days, shut up the doors, and be gone; that the people should be told that if they did not think fit to take some care of the children, they might send for the churchwardens if they thought that better, for that they were born in that parish and there they must be provided for; as for the other child which was born in the parish of ----, that was already taken care of by the parish officers there, for indeed they were so sensible of the distress of the family, that they had at first word done what was their part to do.
This was what these good women proposed, and bade me leave the rest to them. I was at first sadly afflicted at the thoughts of parting with my children, and especially at that terrible thing their being taken into the parish keeping; and then a hundred terrible things came into my thoughts, viz. of parish children being starved at nurse, of their being ruined, let grow crooked, lamed, and the like for want of being taken care of, and this sank my very heart within me.
But the misery of my own circumstances hardened my heart against my own flesh and blood, and when I considered they must inevitably be starved, and I too, if I continued to keep them about me, I began to be reconciled to parting with them all, anyhow and anywhere, that I might be freed from the dreadful necessity of seeing them all perish and perishing with them myself. So I agreed to go away out of the house and leave the management of the whole matter to my maid Amy and to them; and accordingly I did so, and the same afternoon they carried them all away to one of their aunts.
Amy, a resolute girl, knocked at the door with the children all with her, and bade the eldest, as soon as the door was open, run in, and the rest after her, She set them all down at the door before she knocked, and when she knocked she stayed till a maidservant came to the door. "Sweetheart," said she, "pray go in and tell your mistress, here are her little cousins come to see her from ----," naming the town where we lived; at which the maid offered to go back. "Here, child," says Amy, "take one of them in your hand, and I'll bring the rest." So she gives her the least, and the wench goes in mighty innocently with the little one in her hand; upon which Amy turns the rest in after her, shuts the door softly, and marches off as fast as she could.
Just in the interval of this, and even while the maid and her mistress were quarrelling, for the mistress raved and scolded at her like a mad-woman, and had ordered her to go and stop the maid Amy and turn all the children out of the doors again, but she had been at the door and Amy was gone, and the wench was out of her wits and the mistress too--I say, just at this juncture came the poor old woman, not the aunt, but the other of the two that had been with me, and knocks at the door. The aunt did not go because she had pretended to advocate for me, and they would have suspected her of some contrivance; but as for the other woman, they did not so much as know that she had kept up any correspondence with me.
Amy and she had contrived this between them, and it was well enough contrived that they did so. When she came into the house the mistress was fuming and raging like one distracted, and calling the maid all the foolish jades and sluts that she could think of, and that she would take the children and turn them all out into the streets. The good poor woman, seeing her in such a passion, turned about as if she would be gone again, and said, "Madam, I'll come another time, I see you are engaged." "No, no, Mrs. ----," says the mistress, "I am not much engaged; sit down. This senseless creature here has brought in my fool of a brother's whole house of children upon me, and tells me that a wench brought them to the door and thrust them in and bade her carry them to me; but it shall be no disturbance to me, for I have ordered them to be set in the street without the door, and so let the churchwardens take care of them, or else make this dull jade carry them back to ---- again and let her that brought them into the world look after them if she will. What does she send her brats to me for?"
"The last indeed had been the best of the two," says the poor woman, "if it had been to be done; and that brings me to tell you my errand and the occasion of my coming, for I came on purpose about this very business, and to have prevented this being put upon you if I could; but I see I am come too late."
"How do you mean too late?" says the mistress. "What, have you been concerned in this affair, then? What, have you helped bring this family slur upon us?"
"I hope you do not think such a thing of me, madam," says the poor woman; "but I went this morning to ---- to see my old mistress and benefactor, for she had been very kind to me, and when I came to the door I found all fast locked and bolted, and the house looking as if nobody was at home.
"I knocked at the door but nobody came, till at last some of the neighbours' servants called to me and said, 'There's nobody lives there, mistress, what do you knock for?' I seemed surprised at that. 'What, nobody live there!' said I; 'what d'ye mean? Does not Mrs. ---- live there?' The answer was, 'No, she is gone'; at which I parleyed with one of them and asked her what was the matter. 'Matter,' says she, 'why, 'tis matter enough; the poor gentlewoman has lived there all alone, and without anything to subsist her, a long time, and this morning the landlord turned her out of doors.'
"'Out of doors!' says I; 'what, with all her children! poor lambs, what is become of them?' 'Why, truly nothing worse,' said they, 'can come to them than staying here, for they were almost starved with hunger.' So the neighbours seeing the poor lady in such distress, for she stood crying and wringing her hands over her children like one distracted, sent for the churchwardens to take care of the children; and they when they came took the youngest, which was born in this parish, and have got it a very good nurse and taken care of it; but as for the other four, they had sent them away to some of their father's relations, who were very substantial people and who, besides that, lived in the parish where they were born.
"I was not so surprised at this as not presently to foresee that this trouble would be brought upon you or upon Mr. ----, so I came immediately to bring you word of it, that you might be prepared for it and might not be surprised, but I see they have been too nimble for me, so that I know not what to advise. The poor woman, it seems, is turned out of doors into the street, and another of the neighbours there told me that when they took her children from her she swooned away, and when they recovered her out of that she ran distracted, and is put into a madhouse by the parish, for there is nobody else to take any care of her."
This was all acted to the life by this good, kind, poor creature; for though her design was perfectly good and charitable, yet there was not one word of it true in fact; for I was not turned out of doors by the landlord, nor gone distracted. It was true indeed that at parting with my poor children I fainted, and was like one mad when I came to myself and found they were gone, but I remained in the house a good while after that, as you shall hear.
While the poor woman was telling this dismal story, in came the gentlewoman's husband, and though her heart was hardened against all pity, who was really and nearly related to the children, for they were the children of her own brother, yet the good man was quite softened with the dismal relation of the circumstances of the family; and when the poor woman had done he said to his wife, "This is a dismal case, my dear, indeed, and something must be done." His wife fell a-raving at him. "What!" says she, "do you want to have four children to keep? Have we not children of our own? Would you have these brats come and eat up my children's bread? No, no, let them go to the parish, and let them take care of them; I'll take care of my own."
"Come, come, my dear," says the husband, "charity is a duty to the poor, and he that gives to the poor lends to the Lord; let us lend our heavenly Father a little of our children's bread, as you call it; it will be a store well laid up for them, and will be the best security that our children shall never come to want charity or be turned out of doors as these poor innocent creatures are."
"Don't tell me of security," says the wife; "'tis a good security for our children to keep what we have together and provide for them, and then 'tis time enough to help to keep other folks' children. Charity begins at home."
"Well, my dear," says he again, "I only talk of putting out a little money to interest; our Maker is a good borrower. Never fear making a bad debt there, child, I'll be bound for it."
"Don't banter me with your charity and your allegories," says the wife angrily; "I tell you they are my relations, not yours, and they shall not roost here, they shall go to the parish."
"All your relations are my relations now," says the good gentleman very calmly, "and I won't see your relations in distress and not pity them, any more than I would my own. Indeed, my dear, they shan't go to the parish; I assure you none of my wife's relations shall come to the parish if I can help it."
"What! will you take four children to keep?" says the wife.
"No, no, my dear," says he, "there's your sister ----, I'll go and talk with her; and your uncle ----, I'll send for him and the rest. I'll warrant you when we are all together we will find ways and means to keep four poor little creatures from beggary and starving, or else it will be very hard; we are none of us in so bad circumstances but we are able to spare a mite for the fatherless; don't shut up your bowels of compassion against your own flesh and blood. Could you hear these poor innocent children cry at your door for hunger and give them no bread?"
"Prithee, why need they cry at our door?" says she, "'tis the business of the parish to provide for them. They shan't cry at our door; if they do, I'll give them nothing." "Won't you?" says he; "but I will. Remember that dreadful Scripture is directly against us, Prov. 21. 13: 'Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.'"
"Well, well," said she, "you must do what you will, because you pretend to be master; but if I had my will, I would send them where they ought to be sent, I would send them from whence they came."
Then the poor woman put in and said, "But, madam, that is sending them to starve indeed, for the parish has no obligation to take care of them, and so they would lie and perish in the street."
"Or be sent back again," says the husband, "to our parish in a cripple-cart by the Justice's warrant, and so expose us and all the relations to the last degree among our neighbours, and among those who knew the good old gentleman their grandfather, who lived and flourished in this parish so many years and was so well beloved among all people, and deserved it so well."
"I don't value that one farthing, not I," says the wife, "I'll keep none of them."
"Well, my dear," says her husband, "but I value it, for I won't have such a blot lie upon the family and upon your children; he was a worthy, ancient, and good man, and his name is respected among all his neighbours; it will be a reproach to you that are his daughter, and to our children that are his grandchildren, that we should let your brother's children perish, or come to be a charge to the public, in the very place where your family once flourished. Come, say no more, I'll see what can be done."
Upon this he sends and gathers all the relations together at a tavern hard by, and sent for the four little children that they might see them, and they all at first word agreed to have them taken care of; and because his wife was so furious that she would not suffer one of them to be kept at home, they agreed to keep them all together for a while. So they committed them to the poor woman that had managed the affair for them, and entered into obligations to one another to supply the needful sums for their maintenance; and not to have one separated from the rest, they sent for the youngest from the parish where it was taken in, and had them all brought up together.
It would take up too long a part of this story to give a particular account with what a charitable tenderness this good person, who was but uncle-in-law to them, managed that affair; how careful he was of them, went constantly to see them, and to see that they were well provided for, clothed, put to school, and at last put out in the world for their advantage; but 'tis enough to say he acted more like a father to them than an uncle-in-law, though all along much against his wife's consent, who was of a disposition not so tender and compassionate as her husband.
You may believe I heard this with the same pleasure which I now feel at the relating it again, for I was terribly frighted at the apprehensions of my children being brought to misery and distress, as these must be who have no friends but are left to parish benevolence.
I was now, however, entering on a new scene of life. I had a great house upon my hands, and some furniture left in it, but I was no more able to maintain myself and my maid Amy in it than I was my five children; nor had I anything to subsist with but what I might get by working, and that was not a town where much work was to be had.
My landlord had been very kind indeed after he came to know my circumstances, though before he was acquainted with that part he had gone so far as to seize my goods, and to carry some of them off too.
But I had lived three-quarters of a year in his house after that and had paid him no rent, and, which was worse, I was in no condition to pay him any. However, I observed he came oftener to see me, looked kinder upon me, and spoke more friendly to me than he used to do; particularly the last two or three times he had been there he observed, he said, how poorly I lived, how low I was reduced, and the like, told me it grieved him for my sake; and the last time of all he was kinder still, told me he came to dine with me, and that I should give him leave to treat me. So he called my maid Amy and sent her out to buy a joint of meat; he told her what she should buy, but naming two or three things, either of which she might take. The maid, a cunning wench, and faithful to me as the skin to my back, did not buy anything outright, but brought the butcher along with her with both the things that she had chosen, for him to please himself; the one was a large very good leg of veal, the other a piece of the fore-ribs of roasting beef. He looked at them, but bade me chaffer with the butcher for him, and I did so, and came back to him and told him what the butcher demanded for either of them and what each of them came to; so he pulls out 11s. 3d., which they came to together, and bade me take them both; the rest, he said, would serve another time.
I was surprised, you may be sure, at the bounty of a man that had but a little while ago been my terror and had torn the goods out of my house like a fury; but I considered that my distresses had mollified his temper, and that he had afterwards been so compassionate as to give me leave to live rent free in the house a whole year.
But now he put on the face, not of a man of compassion only, but of a man of friendship and kindness, and this was so unexpected that it was surprising. We chatted together, and were, as I may call it, cheerful, which was more than I could say I had been for three years before. He sent for wine and beer too, for I had none; poor Amy and I had drank nothing but water for many weeks, and indeed I have often wondered at the faithful temper of the poor girl, for which I but ill requited her at last.
When Amy was come with the wine he made her fill a glass to him, and with the glass in his hand he came to me and kissed me, which I was, I confess, a little surprised at, but more at what followed; for he told me that as the sad condition which I was reduced to had made him pity me, so my conduct in it and the courage I bore it with had given him a more than ordinary respect for me, and made him very thoughtful for my good; that he was resolved for the present to do something to relieve me, and to employ his thoughts in the meantime to see if he could, for the future, put me into a way to support myself.
While he found me change colour and look surprised at his discourse, for so I did, to be sure, he turns to my maid Amy, and looking at her, he says to me "I say all this, madam, before your maid, because both she and you shall know that I have no ill design, and that I have in mere kindness resolved to do something for you if I can; and as I have been a witness of the uncommon honesty and fidelity of Mrs. Amy here to you in all your distresses, I know she may be trusted with so honest a design as mine is, for, I assure you, I bear a proportioned regard to your maid too for her affection to you."
Amy made him a curtsy, and the poor girl looked so confounded with joy that she could not speak, but her colour came and went, and every now and then she blushed as red as scarlet and the next minute looked as pale as death. Well, having said this, he sat down, made me sit down, and then drank to me and made me drink two glasses of wine together. "For," says he, "you have need of it"; and so indeed I had. When he had done so, "Come, Amy," says he, "with your mistress's leave you shall have a glass too"; so he made her drink two glasses also. And then rising up, "And now, Amy," says he, "go and get dinner; and you, madam," says he to me, "go up and dress you, and come down and smile and be merry," adding, "I'll make you easy if I can "; and in the meantime, he said, he would walk in the garden.
When he was gone, Amy changed her countenance indeed and looked as merry as ever she did in her life. "Dear madam," says she, "what does this gentleman mean." "Nay, Amy," said I, "he means to do us good, you see, don't he? I know no other meaning he can have, for he can get nothing by me." "I warrant you, madam," says she, "he'll ask you a favour by and by." "No, no, you are mistaken, Amy, I dare say," said I; "you heard what he said, didn't you?" "Ay," says Amy, "it's no matter for that; you shall see what he will do after dinner." "Well, well, Amy," says I, "you have hard thoughts of him; I cannot be of your opinion. I don't see anything in him yet that looks like it." "As to that, madam," says Amy, "I don't see anything of it yet neither; but what should move a gentleman to take pity on us as he does?" "Nay," says I, "that's a hard thing too, that we should judge a man to be wicked because he's charitable, and vicious because he's kind." "Oh, madam," says Amy, "there's abundance of charity begins in that vice, and he is not so unacquainted with things as not to know that poverty is the strongest incentive, a temptation against which no virtue is powerful enough to stand out; he knows your condition as well as you do." "Well, and what then?" "Why, then he knows too that you are young and handsome, and he has the surest bait in the world to take you with."
"Well, Amy," said I, "but he may find himself mistaken too in such a thing as that." "Why, madam," says Amy, "I hope you won't deny him if he should offer it."
"What d'ye mean by that, hussy?" said I. "No, I'd starve first."
"I hope not, madam, I hope you would be wiser; I'm
sure if he will set you up, as he talks of, you ought to deny him nothing; and you will starve if you do not consent, that's certain."
"What! consent to lie with him for bread? Amy," said I, "how can you talk so?"
"Nay, madam," says Amy, "I don't think you would for anything else; it would not be lawful for anything else but for bread, madam. Why, nobody can starve; there's no bearing that, I'm sure."
"Ay," says I, "but if he would give me an estate to live on, he should not lie with me, I assure you."
"Why, look you, madam, if he would but give you enough to live easy upon, he should lie with me for it with all my heart."
"That's a token, Amy, of inimitable kindness to me," said I, "and I know how to value it; but there's more friendship than honesty in it, Amy."
"Oh, madam," says Amy, "I'd do anything to get you out of this sad condition. As to honesty, I think honesty is out of the question when starvation is the case; are not we almost starved to death?"
"I am indeed," said I, "and thou art for my sake; but to be a whore, Amy!"--and there I stopped.
"Dear madam," says Amy, "if I will starve for your sake, I will be a whore or anything for your sake; why, I would die for you if I were put to it."
"Why, that's an excess of affection, Amy," said I, "I never met with before; I wish I may be ever in condition to make some returns suitable. But, however, Amy, you shall not be a whore to him, to oblige him to be kind to me; no, Amy, nor I won't be a whore to him if he would give me much more than he is able to give me or do for me."
"Why, madam," says Amy, "I don't say I will go and ask him; but I say if he should promise to do so and so for you, and the condition was such that he would not serve you unless I would let him lie with me, he should lie with me as often as he would rather than you should not have his assistance. But this is but talk, madam, I don't see any need of such discourse, and you are of opinion that there will be no need of it."
"Indeed, so I am, Amy; but," said I, "if there was, I tell you again I'd die before I would consent, or before you should consent for my sake."
Hitherto I had not only preserved the virtue itself, but the virtuous inclination and resolution; and had I kept myself there I had been happy, though I had perished of mere hunger; for, without question, a woman ought rather to die than to prostitute her virtue and honour, let the temptation be what it will.
But to return to my story. He walked about the garden, which was indeed all in disorder and overrun with weeds, because I had not been able to hire a gardener to do anything to it, no, not so much as to dig up ground enough to sow a few turnips and carrots for family use. After he had viewed it, he came in and sent Amy to fetch a poor man, a gardener that used to help our manservant, and carried him into the garden and ordered him to do several things in it to put it into a little order; and this took him up near an hour.
By this time I had dressed me as well as I could, for though I had good linen left still, yet I had but a poor head-dress, and no knots but old fragments, no necklace, no ear-rings; all those things were gone long ago for mere bread.
However, I was tight and clean, and in better plight than he had seen me in a great while, and he looked extremely pleased to see me so, for he said I looked so disconsolate and so afflicted before, that it grieved him to see me; and he bade me pluck up a good heart, for he hoped to put me in a condition to live in the world and be beholden to nobody.
I told him that was impossible, for I must be beholden to him for it, for all the friends I had in the world would not or could not do so much for me as that he spoke of. "Well, widow," says he (so he called me, and so indeed I was in the worst sense that desolate word could be used in), "if you are beholden to me, you shall be beholden to nobody else."
By this time dinner was ready and Amy came in to lay the cloth, and indeed it was happy there was none to dine but he and I, for I had but six plates left in the house and but two dishes. However, he knew how things were, and bade me make no scruple about bringing out what I had, he hoped to see me in a better plight. He did not come, he said, to be entertained, but to entertain me and comfort and encourage me. Thus he went on, speaking so cheerfully to me and such cheerful things, that it was a cordial to my very soul to hear him speak.
Well, we went to dinner. I'm sure I had not eaten a good meal hardly in a twelvemonth, at least not of such a joint of meat as the leg of veal was. I ate indeed very heartily, and so did he, and he made me drink three or four glasses of wine, so that, in short, my spirits were lifted up to a degree I had not been used to; and I was not only cheerful but merry, and so he pressed me to be.
I told him I had a great deal of reason to be merry, seeing he had been so kind to me and had given me hopes of recovering me from the worst circumstances that ever woman of any sort of fortune was sunk into; that he could not but believe that what he had said to me was like life from the dead; that it was like recovering one sick from the brink of the grave. How I should ever make him a return any way suitable was what I had not yet had time to think of; I could only say that I should never forget it while I had life, and should be always ready to acknowledge it.
He said that was all he desired of me, that his reward would be the satisfaction of having rescued me from misery; that he found he was obliging one that knew what gratitude meant; that he would make it his business to make me completely easy, first or last, if it lay in his power; and in the meantime he bade me consider of anything that I thought he might do for me for my advantage and in order to make me perfectly easy.
After we had talked thus he bade me be cheerful. "Come," says he, "lay aside these melancholy things and let us be merry." Amy waited at the table, and she smiled and laughed and was so merry she could hardly contain it, for the girl loved me to an excess hardly to be described; and it was such an unexpected thing to hear any one talk to her mistress, that the wench was beside herself almost; and as soon as dinner was over, Amy went upstairs and put on her best clothes too, and came down dressed like a gentlewoman.
We sat together talking of a thousand things, of what had been and what was to be, all the rest of the day, and in the evening he took his leave of me with a thousand expressions of kindness and tenderness and true affection to me, but offered not the least of what my maid Amy had suggested.
At his going away he took me in his arms, protested an honest kindness to me, said a thousand kind things to me which I cannot now recollect, and, after kissing me twenty times or thereabouts, put a guinea into my hand, which he said was for my present supply, and told me that he would see me again before 'twas out; also, he gave Amy half a crown.
When he was gone, "Well, Amy," said I, "are you convinced now that he is an honest as well as a true friend, and that there has been nothing, not the least appearance of anything of what you imagined, in his behaviour?" "Yes," says Amy, "I am, but I admire at it; he is such a friend as the world sure has not abundance of to show."
"I am sure," says I, "he is such a friend as I have long wanted, and as I have as much need of as any creature in the world has or ever had "; and, in short, I was so overcome with the comfort of it that I sat down and cried for joy a good while, as I had formerly cried for sorrow. Amy and I went to bed that night (for Amy lay with me) pretty early, but lay chatting almost all night about it, and the girl was so transported that she got up two or three times in the night and danced about the room in her shift; in short, the girl was half distracted with the joy of it, a testimony still of her violent affection for her mistress, in which no servant ever went beyond her.
We heard no more of him for two days, but the third day he came again; then he told me, with the same kindness, that he had ordered me a supply of household goods for the furnishing the house; that in particular he had sent me back all the goods that he had seized for rent, which consisted indeed of the best of my former furniture. "And now," says he, "I'll tell you what I have had in my head for you for your present supply, and that is," says he, "that the house being well furnished, you shall let it out to lodgings for the summer gentry," says he, "by which you will easily get a good, comfortable subsistence, especially seeing you shall pay me no rent for two years, nor after neither, unless you can afford it."
This was the first view I had of living comfortably indeed, and it was a very probable way, I must confess, seeing we had very good conveniences, six rooms on a floor, and three storeys high. While he was laying down the scheme of my management, came a cart to the door with a load of goods, and an upholsterer's man to put them up; they were chiefly the furniture of two rooms which he had carried away for his two years' rent, with two fine cabinets and some pier-glasses out of the parlour, and several other valuable things.
These were all restored to their places, and he told me he gave them as freely as a satisfaction for the cruelty he had used me with before; and the furniture of one room being finished and set up, he told me he would furnish one chamber for himself, and would come and be one of my lodgers if I would give him leave.
I told him he ought not to ask me leave, who had so much right to make himself welcome. So the house began to look in some tolerable figure and clean; the garden also in about a fortnight's work began to look something less like a wilderness than it used to do; and he ordered me to put up a bill for letting rooms, reserving one for himself to come to as he saw occasion.
When all was done to his mind, as to placing the goods, he seemed very well pleased, and we dined together again of his own providing, and the upholsterer's man gone. After dinner he took me by the hand. "Come now, madam," says he, "you must show me your house" (for he had a mind to see everything over again). "No, sir," said I, "but I'll go show you your house, if you please." So we went up through all the rooms, and in the room which was appointed for himself Amy was doing something. "Well, Amy," says he, "I intend to lie with you to-morrow night." "To-night, if you please, sir," says Amy very innocently; "your room is quite ready." "Well, Amy," says he, "I am glad you are so willing." "No," says Amy, "I mean your chamber is ready to-night "; and away she ran out of the room, ashamed enough, for the girl meant no harm, whatever she had said to me in private.
However, he said no more then; but when Amy was gone he walked about the room and looked at everything, and taking me by the hand he kissed me and spoke a great many kind, affectionate things to me indeed: as of his measures for my advantage, and what he would do to raise me again in the world; told me that my afflictions and the conduct I had shown in bearing them to such an extremity had so engaged him to me, that he valued me infinitely above all the women in the world; that though he was under such engagements that he could not marry me (his wife and he had been parted for some reasons which make too long a story to intermix with mine), yet that he would be everything else that a woman could ask in a husband. And with that he kissed me again and took me in his arms, but offered not the least uncivil action to me, and told me he hoped I would not deny him all the favours he should ask, because he resolved to ask nothing of me but what it was fit for a woman of virtue and modesty, for such he knew me to be, to yield.
I confess the terrible pressure of my former misery, the memory of which lay heavy upon my mind, and the surprising kindness with which he had delivered me, and withal, the expectations of what he might still do for me, were powerful things and made me have scarce the power to deny him anything he would ask. However, I told him thus, with an air of tenderness too, that he had done so much for me that I thought I ought to deny him nothing, only I hoped and depended upon him that he would not take the advantage of the infinite obligations I was under to him, to desire anything of me the yielding to which would lay me lower in his esteem than I desired to be; that as I took him to be a man of honour, so I knew he could not like me the better for doing anything that was below a woman of honesty and good manners to do.
He told me that he had done all this for me without so much as telling me what kindness or real affection he had for me; that I might not be under any necessity of yielding to him in anything for want of bread, and he would no more oppress my gratitude now than he would my necessity before, nor ask anything, supposing he would stop his favours or withdraw his kindness, if he was denied. It was true, he said, he might tell me more freely his mind now than before, seeing I had let him see that I accepted his assistance and saw that he was sincere in his design of serving me; that he had gone thus far to show me that he was kind to me, but that now he would tell me that he loved me, and yet would demonstrate that his love was both honourable and that what he should desire was what he might honestly ask and I might honestly grant.
I answered that, within those two limitations, I was sure I ought to deny him nothing, and I should think myself not ungrateful only but very unjust if I should; so he said no more, but I observed he kissed me more and took me in his arms in a kind of familiar way more than usual, and which once or twice put me in mind of my maid Amy's words. And yet I must acknowledge I was so overcome with his goodness to me in those many kind things he had done, that I not only was easy at what he did and made no resistance, but was inclined to do the like, whatever he had offered to do. But he went no further than what I have said, nor did he offer so much as to sit down on the bedside with me, but took his leave, said he loved me tenderly and would convince me of it by such demonstrations as should be to my satisfaction. I told him I had a great deal of reason to believe him, that he was full master of the whole house and of me as far as was within the bounds we had spoken of, which I believed he would not break, and asked him if he would not lodge there that night.
He said he could not well stay that night, business requiring him in London, but added, smiling, that he would come the next day and take a night's lodging with me. I pressed him to stay that night, and told him I should be glad a friend so valuable should be under the same roof with me; and indeed I began at that time not only to be much obliged to him, but to love him too, and that in a manner that I had not been acquainted with myself.
Oh let no woman slight the temptation that being generously delivered from trouble is to any spirit furnished with gratitude and just principles. This gentleman had freely and voluntarily delivered me from misery, from poverty, and rags; he had made me what I was, and put me into a way to be even more than I ever was, namely, to live happy and pleased, and on his bounty I depended. What could I say to this gentleman when he pressed me to yield to him and argued the lawfulness of it? But of that in its place.
I pressed him again to stay that night, and told him it was the first completely happy night that I had ever had in the house in my life, and I should be very sorry to have it without his company, who was the cause and foundation of it all; that we would be innocently merry, but that it could never be without him; and, in short, I courted him so, that he said he could not deny me, but he would take his horse and go to London, do the business he had to do, which, it seems, was to pay a foreign bill that was due that night and would else be protested, and that he would come back in three hours at furthest and sup with me; but bade me get nothing there, for since I was resolved to be merry, which was what he desired above all things, he would send me something from London. "And we will make it a wedding supper, my dear," says he, and with that word took me in his arms and kissed me so vehemently that I made no question but he intended to do everything else that Amy had talked of.
I started a little at the word "wedding." "What do you mean, to call it by such a name?" says I; adding, "We will have a supper, but t'other is impossible as well on your side as mine." He laughed. "Well," says he, "you shall call it what you will, but it may be the same thing, for I shall satisfy you it is not so impossible as you make it."
"I don't understand you," said I; "have not I a husband and you a wife?"
"Well, well," says he, "we will talk of that after supper." So he rose up, gave me another kiss, and took his horse for London.
This kind of discourse had fired my blood, I confess, and I knew not what to think of it. It was plain now that he intended to lie with me, but how he would reconcile it to a legal thing like a marriage, that I could not imagine. We had both of us used Amy with so much intimacy and trusted her with everything, having such unexampled instances of her fidelity, that he made no scruple to kiss me and say all these things to me before her, nor had he cared one farthing, if I would have let him lie with me, to have had Amy there too all night. When he was gone, "Well, Amy," says I, "what will all this come to now? I am all in a sweat at him." "Come to, madam," says Amy, "I see what it will come to; I must put you to bed to-night together," "Why, you would not be so impudent, you jade you," says I, "would you?" "Yes, I would," says she, "with all my heart, and think you both as honest as ever you were in your lives."
"What ails the slut to talk so?" said I. "Honest! how can it be honest?" "Why, I'll tell you, madam." says Amy; "I sounded it as soon as I heard him speak, and it is very true too. He calls you widow, and such indeed you are, for as my master has left you so many years, he is dead to be sure--at least he is dead to you, he is no husband--you are and ought to be free to marry who you will; and his wife being gone from him and refuses to lie with him, then he is a single man again as much as ever; and though you cannot bring the laws of the land to join you together, yet one refusing to do the once of a wife, and the other of a husband, you may certainly take one another fairly."
"Nay, Amy," says I, "if I could take him fairly, you may be sure I'd take him above all the men in the world. It turned the very heart within me when I heard him say he loved me; how could it do otherwise when you know what a condition I was in before, despised and trampled on by all the world? I could have taken him in my arms and kissed him as freely as he did me, if it had not been for shame."
"Ay, and all the rest too," says Amy, "at the first word. I don't see how you can think of denying him anything. Has he not brought you out of the devil's clutches, brought you out of the blackest misery that ever poor lady was reduced to? Can a woman deny such a man anything?"
"Nay, I don't know what to do, Amy," says I. "I hope he won't desire anything of that kind of me, I hope he won't attempt it; if he does, I know not what to say to him."
"Not ask you!" says Amy; "depend upon it, he will ask you, and you will grant it, too; I'm sure my mistress is no fool. Come, pray, madam, let me go air you a clean shift; don't let him find you in foul linen the wedding night."
"But that I know you to be a very honest girl, Amy," says I, "you would make me abhor you; why, you argue for the devil, as if you were one of his privy counsellors."
"It's no matter for that, madam, I say nothing but what I think. You own you love this gentleman, and he has given you sufficient testimony of his affection to you; your conditions are alike unhappy, and he is of opinion that he may take another woman, his first wife having broke her honour, and living from him, and that, though the laws of the land will not allow him to marry formally, yet that he may take another woman into his arms, provided he keeps true to the other woman as a wife; nay, he says it is usual to do so, and allowed by the custom of the place, in several countries abroad. And I must own I'm of the same mind, else 'tis in the power of a whore, after she has jilted and abandoned her husband, to confine him from the pleasure as well as convenience of a woman all the days of his life, which would be very unreasonable and, as times go, not tolerable to all people; and the like on your side, madam."
Had I now had my senses about me, and had my reason not been overcome by the powerful attraction of so kind, so beneficent a friend, had I consulted conscience and virtue, I should have repelled this Amy, however faithful and honest to me in other things, as a viper and engine of the devil. I ought to have remembered that neither he nor I, either by the laws of God or man, could come together upon any other terms than that of notorious adultery. The ignorant jade's argument that he had brought me out of the hands of the devil, by which she meant the devil of poverty and distress, should have been a powerful motive to me not to plunge myself into the jaws of hell and into the power of the real devil, in recompense for that deliverance. I should have looked upon all the good this man had done for me to have been the particular work of the goodness of Heaven, and that goodness should have moved me to a return of duty and humble obedience. I should have received the mercy thankfully, and applied it soberly to the praise and honour of my Maker, whereas by this wicked course all the bounty and kindness of this gentleman became a snare to me, was a mere bait to the devil's hook. I received his kindness at the dear expense of body and soul, mortgaging faith, religion, conscience, and modesty for (as I may call it) a morsel of bread, or, if you will, ruined my soul from a principle of gratitude and gave myself up to the devil to show myself grateful to my benefactor. I must do the gentleman that justice as to say I verily believe that he did nothing but what he thought was lawful, and I must do that justice upon myself as to say I did what my own conscience convinced me at the very time I did it was horribly unlawful, scandalous, and abominable.
But poverty was my snare, dreadful poverty! The misery I had been in was great, such as would make the heart tremble at the apprehensions of its return, and I might appeal to any that has had any experience of the world, whether one so entirely destitute as I was, of all manner of all helps or friends either to support me or to assist me to support myself, could withstand the proposal; not that l plead this as a justification of my conduct, but that it may move the pity even of those that abhor the crime.
Besides this, I was young, handsome, and with all the mortifications I had met with, was vain, and that not a little; and as it was a new thing, so it as a pleasant thing to be courted, caressed, embraced, and high professions of affection made to me by a man so agreeable and so able to do me good.
Add to this, that if I had ventured to disoblige this gentleman, I had no friend in the world to have recourse to; I had no prospect, no, not of a bit of bread; I had nothing before me but to fall back into the same misery that I had been in before.
Amy had but too much rhetoric in this cause. She represented all those things in their proper colours; she argued them all with her utmost skill, and at last the merry jade, when she came to dress me, "Look ye, madam," said she, "if you won't consent, tell him you'll do as Rachel did to Jacob when she could have no children--put her maid to bed to him; tell him you cannot comply with him, but there's Amy, he may ask her the question, she has promised me she won't deny you."
"And would you have me say so, Amy?" said I.
"No, madam, but I would really have you do so; besides, you are undone if you do not. And if my doing it would save you from being undone, as I said before, he shall if he will; if he asks me I won't deny him, not I; hang me if I do," says Amy.
"Well, I know not what to do," says I to Amy.
"Do!" says Amy; "your choice is fair and plain. Here you may have a handsome, charming gentleman, be rich, live pleasantly and in plenty; or refuse him, and want a dinner, go in rags, live in tears; in short, beg and starve. You know this is the case, madam," says Amy; "I wonder how you can say you know not what to do."
"Well, Amy," says I, "the case is as you say, and I think verily I must yield to him; but then," said I, moved by conscience, "don't talk any more of your cant, of its being lawful that I ought to marry again and that he ought to marry again, and such stuff as that; 'tis all nonsense," says I, "Amy, there's nothing in it, let me hear no more of that; for if I yield 'tis in vain to mince the matter, I am a whore, Amy, neither better nor worse, I assure you."
"I don't think so, madam, by no means," says Amy, "I wonder how you can talk so "; and then she ran on with her argument of the unreasonableness that a woman should be obliged to live single or a man to live single in such cases, as before. "Well, Amy," said I, "come let us dispute no more, for the longer I enter into that part, the greater my scruples will be, but if I let it alone the necessity of my present circumstances is such that I believe I shall yield to him if he should importune me much about it, but I should be glad he would not do it at all but leave me as I am."
"As to that, madam, you may depend," says Amy, "he expects. to have you for his bedfellow to-night. I saw it plainly in his management all day, and at last he told you so too, as plain, I think, as he could." "Well, well, Amy," said I, "I don't know what to say; if he will, he must, I think; I don't know how to resist such a man that has done so much for me." "I don't know how you should," says Amy.
Thus Amy and I canvassed the business between us. The jade prompted the crime, which I had but too much inclination to commit; that is to say, not as a crime, for I had nothing of the vice in my constitution; my spirits were far from being high, my blood had no fire in it to kindle the flame of desire, but the kindness and good humour of the man and the dread of my own circumstances concurred to bring me to the point, and I even resolved, before he asked, to give up my virtue to him whenever he should put it to the question.
In this I was a double offender, whatever he was, for I was resolved to commit the crime, knowing and owning it to be a crime. He, if it was true as he said, was fully persuaded it was lawful, and in that persuasion he took the measures and used all the circumlocutions which I am going to speak of.
About two hours after he was gone, came a Leadenhall basket-woman with a whole load of good things for the mouth (the particulars are not to the purpose), and brought orders to get supper by eight o'clock. However, I did not intend to begin to dress anything till I saw him, and he gave me time enough, for he came before seven; so that Amy, who had gotten one to help her, got everything ready in time.
We sat down to supper about eight, and were indeed very merry. Amy made us some sport, for she was a girl of spirit and wit, and with her talk she made us laugh very often, and yet the jade managed her wit with all the good manners imaginable.
But to shorten the story. After supper he took me up into his chamber, where Amy had made a good fire, and there he pulled out a great many papers and spread them upon a little table, and then took me by the hand, and after kissing me very much he entered into a discourse of his circumstances and of mine, how they agreed in several things exactly; for example, that I was abandoned of a husband in the prime of my youth and vigour, and he of a wife in his middle age; how the end of marriage was destroyed by the treatment we had either of us received, and it would be very hard that we should be tied by the formality of the contract where the essence of it was destroyed. I interrupted him, and told him there was a vast difference between our circumstances, and that in the most essential part, namely, that he was rich and I was poor, that he was above the world and I infinitely below it, that his circumstances were very easy, mine miserable, and this was an inequality the most essential that could be imagined. "As to that, my dear," says he, "I have taken such measures as shall make an equality still "; and with that he showed me a contract in writing, wherein he engaged himself to me, to cohabit constantly with me, to provide for me in all respects as a wife, and repeating in the preamble a long account of the nature and reason of our living together, and an obligation in the penalty of £7,000 never to abandon me, and at last showed me a bond for £500 to be paid to me or to my assigns within three months after his death.
He read over all these things to me, and then in a most moving, affectionate manner, and in words not to be answered, he said, "Now, my dear, is this not sufficient? Can you object anything against it? If not, as I believe you will not, then let us debate this matter no longer." With that he pulled out a silk purse which had three-score guineas in it, and threw them into my lap, and concluded all the rest of his discourse with kisses and protestations of his love, of which, indeed, I had abundant proof.
Pity human frailty, you that read of a woman reduced in her youth and prime to the utmost misery and distress, and raised again, as above, by the unexpected and surprising bounty of a stranger; I say, pity her if she was not able, after all these things, to make any more resistance.
However, I stood out a little longer still. I asked him how he could expect that I could come into a proposal of such consequence the very first time it was moved to me, and that I ought (if I consented to it) to capitulate with him that he should never upbraid me with easiness and consenting too soon. He said no, but on the contrary he would take it as a mark of the greatest kindness I could show him. Then he went on to give reasons why there was no occasion to use the ordinary ceremony of delay or to wait a reasonable time of courtship, which was only to avoid scandal, but as this was private it had nothing of that nature in it; that he had been courting me some time by the best of courtship, viz. doing acts of kindness to me, and he had given testimonies of his sincere affection to me by deeds, not by flattering trifles and the usual courtship of words, which were often found to have very little meaning; that he took me not as a mistress but as his wife, and protested it was clear to him he might lawfully do it and that I was perfectly at liberty; and assured me by all that it was possible for an honest man to say, that he would treat me as his wife as long as he lived. In a word, he conquered all the little resistance I intended to make. He protested he loved me above all the world, and begged I would for once believe him; that he had never deceived me, and never would, but would make it his study to make my life comfortable and happy and to make me forget the misery I had gone through. I stood still awhile and said nothing, but seeing him eager for my answer, I smiled, and looking up at him, "And must I, then," says I, "say yes at first asking? Must I depend upon your promise? Why, then," said I, "upon the faith of that promise, and in the sense of that inexpressible kindness you have shown me, you shall be obliged, and I will be wholly yours to the end of my life." And with that I took his hand which held me by the hand, and gave it a kiss.
And thus, in gratitude for the favours I received from a man, was all sense of religion and duty to God, all regard to virtue and honour, given up at once, and we were to call one another man and wife, who in the sense of the laws both of God and our country were no more than two adulterers, in short, a whore and a rogue. Nor, as I have said above, was my conscience silent in it, though it seems his was; for I sinned with open eyes, and thereby had a double guilt upon me. As I always said, his notions were of another kind, and he either was before of the opinion, or argued himself into it now, that we were both free and might lawfully marry.
But I was quite of another side, nay, and my judgmemt was right, but my circumstances were my temptation; the terrors behind me looked blacker than the terrors before me, and the dreadful argument of wanting bread, and being run into the horrible distresses I was in before, mastered all my resolution, and I gave myself up, as above.
The rest of the evening we spent very agreeably to me; he was perfectly good-humoured and was at that time very merry. Then he made Amy dance with him, and I told him I would put Amy to bed to him. Amy said, with all her heart; she never had been a bride in her life. In short, he made the girl so merry, that had he not been to lie with me the same night, I believe he would have played the fool with Amy for half an hour, and the girl would no more have refused him than I intended to do. Yet before, I had always found her a very modest wench as any I ever saw in all my life, but, in short, the mirth of that night and a few more such afterwards ruined the girl's modesty for ever, as shall appear by and by in its place.
So far does fooling and toying sometimes go, that I know nothing a young woman has to be more cautious of. So far had this innocent girl gone in jesting between her and I, and in talking that she would let him lie with her if he would but be kinder to me, that at last she let him lie with her in earnest; and so empty was I now of all principle, that I encouraged the doing it almost before my face.
I say but too justly that I was empty of principle, because, as above, I had yielded to him, not as deluded to believe it lawful, but as overcome by his kindness and terrified at the fear of my own misery if he should leave me. So with my eyes open and with my conscience, as I may say, awake, I sinned, knowing it to be a sin but having no power to resist. When this had thus made a hole in my heart, and I was come to such a height as to transgress against the light of my own conscience, I was then fit for any wickedness, and conscience left off speaking where it found it could not be heard.
But to return to our story. Having consented, as above, to his proposal, we had not much more to do. He gave me my writings, and the bond for my maintenance during his life and for £500 after his death; and so far was he from abating his affection to me afterwards, that two years after we were thus, as he called it, married, he made his will and gave me £1,000 more, and all my household stuff, plate, etc., which was considerable too.
Amy put us to bed, and my new friend (I cannot call him husband) was so well pleased with Amy for her fidelity and kindness to me, that he paid her all the arrears of her wages that I owed her, and gave her five guineas over; and had it gone no further, Amy had richly deserved what she had, for never was a maid so true to a mistress in such dreadful circumstances as I was in. Nor was what followed more her own fault than mine, who led her almost into it at first and quite into it at last; and this may be a further testimony what a hardness of crime I was now arrived to, which was owing to the conviction that was from the beginning upon me, that I was a whore, not a wife, nor could I ever frame my mouth to call him husband or to say "my husband" when I was speaking of him.
We lived surely the most agreeable life, the grand exception only excepted, that ever two lived together. He was the most obliging, gentlemanly man and the most tender of me that ever woman gave herself up to; nor was there ever the least interruption to our mutual kindness, no, not to the last day of his life. But I must bring Amy's disaster in at once, that I may have done with her.
Amy was dressing me one morning, for now I had two maids, and Amy was my chamber-maid. "Dear madam," says Amy, "what! ain't you with child yet?" "No, Amy," says I, "nor any sign of it." "Law, madam," says Amy, "what have you been doings Why, you have been married a year and a half; I warrant you master would have got me with child twice in that time." "It may be so, Amy," says I, "let him try, can't you." "No," says Amy, "you'll forbid it now; I told you he should with all my heart, but I won't now, now he's all your own." "Oh," says I, "Amy, I'll freely give you my consent, it will be nothing at all to me; nay, I'll put you to bed to him myself one night or other if you are willing." "No, madam, no," says Amy, "not now he's yours."
"Why, you fool you," says I, "don't I tell you I'll put you to bed to him myself."
"Nay, nay," says Amy, "if you put me to bed to him, that's another case; I believe I shall not rise again very soon."
"I'll venture that, Amy," says I.
After supper that night, and before we were risen from table, I said to him, Amy being by, "Hark ye, Mr. ----, do you know that you are to lie with Amy to-night?" "No, not I," says he; but turns to Amy, "Is it so, Amy?" says he. "No, sir," says she. "Nay, don't say no, you fool; did not I promise to put you to bed to him?" But the girl said no still, and it passed off.
At night, when we came to go to bed, Amy came into the chamber to undress me, and her master slipped into bed first. Then I began and told him all that Amy had said about my not being with child, and of her being with child twice in that time. "Ay, Mrs. Amy," says he, "I believe so too; come hither and we'll try." But Amy did not go. "Go, you fool," says I, "can't you; I freely give you both leave." But Amy would not go. "Nay, you whore," says I, "you said if I would put you to bed you would with all your heart "; and with that I sat her down, pulled off her stockings and shoes, and all her clothes, piece by piece, and led her to the bed to him. "Here," says I, "try what you can do with your maid Amy." She pulled back a little, would not let me pull off her clothes at first, but it was hot weather and she had not many clothes on, and particularly no stays on; and at last, when she saw I was in earnest, she let me do what I would; so I fairly stripped her, and then I threw open the bed and thrust her in.
I need say no more; this is enough to convince anybody that I did not think him my husband, and that I had cast off all principle and all modesty and had effectually stifled conscience.
Amy, I dare say, began now to repent, and would fain have got out of bed again, but he said to her, "Nay, Amy, you see your mistress has put you to bed, 'tis all her doing, you must blame her." So he held her fast, and the wench being naked in the bed with him, 'twas too late to look back, so she lay still and let him do what he would with her.
Had I looked upon myself as a wife, you cannot suppose I would have been willing to have let my husband lie with my maid, much less before my face, for I stood by all the while; but as I thought myself a whore, I cannot say but that it was something designed in my thoughts that my maid should be a whore too, and should not reproach me with it.
Amy, however, less vicious than I, was grievously out of sorts the next morning, and cried and took on most vehemently, that she was ruined and undone, and there was no pacifying her; she was a whore, a slut, and she was undone! undone! and cried almost all day. I did all I could to pacify her. "A whore!" says I; "well, and am not I a whore as well as you?" "No, no," says Amy, "no, you are not, for you are married." "Not I, Amy," says I, "I do not pretend to it; he may marry you to-morrow if he will, for anything I could do to hinder it; I am not married, I do not look upon it as anything." Well, all did not pacify Amy; she cried two or three days about it, but it wore off by degrees.
But the case differed between Amy and her master exceedingly; for Amy retained the same kind temper she always had, but on the contrary he was quite altered, for he hated her heartily, and could, I believe, have killed her after it; and he told me so, for he thought this a vile action, whereas what he and I had done he was perfectly easy in, thought it just, and esteemed me as much his wife as if we had been married from our youth and had neither of us known any other; nay, he loved me, I believe, as entirely as if I had been the wife of his youth; nay, he told me, it was true in one sense, that he had two wives, but that I was the wife of his affection, the other the wife of his aversion.
I was extremely concerned at the aversion he had taken to my maid Amy, and used my utmost skill to get it altered; for though he had indeed debauched the wench, I know that I was the principal occasion of it, and as he was the best-humoured man in the world, I never gave him over till I prevailed with him to be easy with her; and as I was now become the devil's agent to make others as wicked as myself, I brought him to lie with her again several times after that, till at last, as the poor girl said, so it happened, and she was really with child.
She was terribly concerned at it, and so was he too. "Come, my dear," says I, "when Rachel put her handmaid to bed to Jacob she took the children as her own. Don't be uneasy, I'll take the child as my own; had not I a hand in the frolic of putting her to bed to you? It was my fault as much as yours." So I called Amy and encouraged her too, and told her that I would take care of the child and her too, and added the same argument to her. "For," says I, "Amy, it was all my fault; did not I drag your clothes off your back and put you to bed to him?" Thus I, that had indeed been the cause of all the wickedness between them, encouraged them both when they had any remorse about it, and rather prompted them to go on with it than to repent of it.
When Amy grew big she went to a place I had provided for her, and the neighbours knew nothing but that Amy and I were parted. She had a fine child indeed, a daughter, and we had it nursed, and Amy came again in about half a year to live with her old mistress. But neither my gentleman nor Amy either cared for playing that game over again; for, as he said, the jade might bring him a houseful of children to keep.
We lived as merrily and as happily after this as could be expected, considering our circumstances; I mean as to the pretended marriage, etc. And as to that, my gentleman had not the least concern about him for it; but as much as I was hardened, and that was as much as I believe ever any wicked creature was, yet I could not help it; there was and would be hours of intervals and of dark reflections which came involuntarily in and thrust in sighs into the middle of all my songs, and there would be sometimes a heaviness of heart which intermingled itself with all my joy and which would often fetch a tear from my eye. And let others pretend what they will, I believe it impossible to be otherwise with anybody. There can be no substantial satisfaction in a life of known wickedness; conscience will, and does, often break in upon them at particular times, let them do what they can to prevent it.
But I am not to preach, but to relate; and whatever loose reflections were, and how often soever those dark intervals came on, I did my utmost to conceal them from him, ay, and to suppress and smother them too in myself, and to outward appearance we lived as cheerfully and as agreeably as it was possible for any couple in the world to live.
After I had thus lived with him something above two years, truly I found myself with child too. My gentleman was mightily pleased at it, and nothing could be kinder than he was in the preparations he made for me and for my lying-in, which was, however, very private, because I cared for as little company as possible, nor had I kept up my neighbourly acquaintance, so that I had nobody to invite upon such an occasion.
I was brought to bed very well (of a daughter too, as well as Amy), but the child died at about six weeks old; so all that work was to do over again, that is to say, the charge, the expense, the travel, etc.
The next year I made him amends, and brought him a son, to his great satisfaction. It was a charming child and he did very well. After this, my husband, as he called himself, came to me one evening and told me he had a very difficult thing happened to him, which he knew not what to do in or how to resolve about unless I would make him easy; this was, that his occasions required him to go over to France for about two months.
"Well, my dear," says I, "and how shall I make you easy?"
"Why, by consenting to let me go," says he; "upon which condition I'll tell you the occasion of my going, that you may judge of the necessity there is for it on my side." Then to make me easy in his going, he told me he would make his will before he went, which should be to my full satisfaction.
I told him the last part was so kind that I could not decline the first part, unless he would give me leave to add that if it was not for putting him to an extraordinary expense I would go over along with him.
He was so pleased with this offer that he told me he would give me full satisfaction for it, and accept of it too. So he took me to London with him the next day, and there he made his will, and showed it to me, sealed it before proper witnesses, and then gave it to me to keep. In this will he gave a thousand pounds to a person that we both knew very well, in trust, to pay it, with the interest from the time of his decease, to me or my assigns; then he willed the payment of my jointure, as he called it, viz. his bond of a hundred pounds, after his death, also he gave me all my household stuff, plate, etc.
This was a most engaging thing for a man to do to one under my circumstances, and it would have been hard, as I told him, to deny him anything or to refuse to go with him anywhere. So we settled everything as well as we could, left Amy in charge of the house, and for his other business, which was in jewels, he had two men he entrusted, whom he had good security for, and who managed for him and corresponded with him.
Things being thus concerted, we went away to France, arrived safe at Calais, and by easy journeys came in eight days more to Paris, where we lodged in the house of an English merchant of his acquaintance and were very courteously entertained.
My gentleman's business was with some persons of the first rank, and to whom he had sold some jewels of very good value and received a great sum of money in specie, and, as he told me privately, he gained 3,000 pistoles by his bargain, but would not suffer the most intimate friend he had there to know what he had received, for it is not so safe a thing in Paris to have a great sum of money in keeping, as it might be in London.
We made this journey much longer than we intended, and my gentleman sent for one of his managers in London to come over to us to Paris with some diamonds, and sent him back to London again to fetch more. Then other business fell into his hands so unexpectedly, that I began to think we should take up our constant residence there, which I was not very averse to, it being my native country, and I spoke the language perfectly well. So we took a good house in Paris and lived very well there, and I sent for Amy to come over to me; for I lived gallantly, and my gentleman was two or three times going to keep me a coach, but I declined it, especially at Paris; but as they have those conveniences by the day there at a certain rate, I had an equipage provided for me whenever I pleased, and I lived here in a very good figure, and might have lived higher if I pleased.
But in the middle of all this felicity a dreadful disaster befell me, which entirely unhinged all my affairs and threw me back into the same state of life that I was in before; with this one happy exception, however, that whereas before I was poor even to misery, now I was not only provided for, but very rich.
My gentleman had the name in Paris for a very rich man, and indeed he was so, though not so immensely rich as people imagined; but that which was fatal to him was that he generally carried a shagreen case in his pocket, especially when he went to court or to the houses of any of the princes of the blood, in which he had jewels of very great value.
It happened one day, that being to go to Versailles to wait upon the Prince of ----, he came up into my chamber in the morning and laid out his jewel case, because he was not going to show any jewels, but to get a foreign bill accepted which he had received from Amsterdam. So when he gave me the case, he said, "My dear, I think I need not carry this with me, because it may be I may not come back till night, and it is too much to venture." I returned "Then, my dear, you shan't go." "Why?" says he. "Because as they are too much for you, so you are too much for me to venture, and you shall not go unless you will promise me not to stay, so as to come back in the night."
"I hope there's no danger," said he, "seeing I have nothing about me of any value; and therefore, lest I should, take that too," says he, and gives me his gold watch, and a rich diamond which he had in a ring and always wore on his finger.
"Well, but, my dear," says I, "you make me more uneasy now than before, for if you apprehend no danger, why do you use this caution? and if you apprehend there is danger, why do you go at all?"
"There is no danger," says he, "if I do not stay late, and I do not design to do so."
"Well, but promise me, then, that you won't," says I, "or else I cannot let you go."
"I won't indeed, my dear," says he, "unless I am obliged to it. I assure you I do not intend it, but if I should, I am not worth robbing now, for I have nothing about me but about six pistoles in my little purse, and that little ring," showing me a small diamond ring, worth about ten or twelve pistoles, which he put upon his finger in the room of the rich one he usually wore.
I still pressed him not to stay late, and he said he would not. "But if I am kept late," says he, "beyond my expectation, I'll stay all night and come next morning." This seemed a very good caution, but still my mind was very uneasy about him, and I told him so, and entreated him not to go. I told him I did not know what might be the reason, but that I had a strange terror upon my mind about his going, and that, if he did go, I was persuaded some harm would attend him. He smiled, and returned, "Well, my dear, if it should be so, you are now richly provided for; all that I have here I give to you." And with that he takes up the casket or case. "Here," says he, "hold your hand, there is a good estate for you in this case; if anything happens to me, 'tis all your own, I give it you for yourself." And with that he put the casket, the fine ring, and his gold watch all into my hands, and the key of his escritoire besides, adding, "And in my escritoire there is some money; 'tis all your own."
I stared at him as if I was frighted, for I thought all his face looked like a death's head, and then immediately I thought I perceived his head all bloody, and then his clothes looked bloody too; and immediately it all went off and he looked as he really did. Immediately I fell a-crying and hung about him. "My dear," said I, "I am frighted to death; you shall not go; depend upon it, some mischief will befall you." I did not tell him how my vapourish fancy had represented him to me; that, I thought, was not proper; besides, he would only have laughed at me, and would have gone away with a jest about it. But I pressed him seriously not to go that day, or, if he did, to promise me to come home to Paris again by daylight. He looked a little graver then than he did before, told me he was not apprehensive of the least danger; but if there was, he would either take care to come in the day or, as he had said before, would stay all night.
But all these promises came to nothing, for he was set upon in the open day and robbed by three men on horseback, masked, as he went; and one of them, who it seems rifled him while the rest stood to stop the coach, stabbed him into the body with a sword, so that he died immediately. He had a footman behind the coach whom they knocked down with the stock or butt end of a carbine. They were supposed to kill him because of the disappointment they met with in not getting his case or casket of diamonds, which they knew he carried about him; and this was supposed, because after they had killed him they made the coachman drive out of the road a long way over the heath till they came to a convenient place, where they pulled him out of the coach and searched his clothes more narrowly than they could do while he was alive.
But they found nothing but his little ring, six pistoles, and the value of about seven livres in small moneys.
This was a dreadful blow to me, though I cannot say I was so surprised as I should otherwise have been; for all the while he was gone my mind was oppressed with the weight of my own thoughts, and I was as sure that I should never see him any more, that I think nothing could be like it; the impression was so strong, that I think nothing could make so deep a wound that was imaginary, and I was so dejected and disconsolate, that when I received the news of his disaster, there was no room for any extraordinary alteration in me. I had cried all that day, ate nothing, and only waited, as I might say, to receive the dismal news, which I had brought to me about five o'clock in the afternoon.
I was in a strange country, and, though I had a pretty many acquaintances, had but very few friends that I could consult on this occasion. All possible enquiry was made after the rogues that had been thus barbarous, but nothing could be heard of them; nor was it possible that the footman could make any discovery of them by his description, for they knocked him down immediately, so that he knew nothing of what was done afterwards. The coachman was the only man that could say anything, and all his account amounted to no more than this, that one of them had soldier's clothes, but he could not remember the particulars of his mounting so as to know what regiment he belonged to; and as to their faces, that he could know nothing of, because they had all of them masks on.
I had him buried as decently as the place would permit a Protestant stranger to be buried, and made some of the scruples and difficulties on that account easy by the help of money to a certain person, who went impudently to the curate of the parish St. Sulpice in Paris and told him that the gentleman that was killed was a Catholic, that the thieves had taken from him a cross of gold set with diamonds, worth 6,000 livres, that his widow was a Catholic and had sent by him sixty crowns to the Church of ---- for Masses to be said for the repose of his soul. Upon all which, though not one word of it was true, he was buried with all the ceremonies of the Roman Church.
I think I almost cried myself to death for him, for I abandoned myself to all the excesses of grief, and indeed I loved him to a degree inexpressible; and considering what kindness he had shown me at first, and how tenderly he had used me to the last, what could I do less?
Then the manner of his death was terrible and frightful to me, and, above all, the strange notices I had of it. I had never pretended to the second sight or anything of that kind, but certainly if any one ever had such a thing, I had it at this time, for I saw him as plainly in all those terrible shapes as above. First, as a skeleton, not dead only, but rotten and wasted; secondly, as killed, and his face bloody; and thirdly, his clothes bloody; and all within the space of one minute, or indeed of a very few moments.
These things amazed me, and I was a good while as one stupid. However, after some time I began to recover and look into my affairs. I had the satisfaction not to be left in distress or in danger of poverty; on the contrary, besides what he had put into my hands fairly in his lifetime, which amounted to a very considerable value, I found above seven hundred pistoles in gold in his escritoire, of which he had given me the key, and I found foreign bills accepted for about 12,000 livres; so that, in a word, I found myself possessed of almost ten thousand pounds sterling in a very few days after the disaster.
The first thing I did upon this occasion was to send a letter to my maid (as I still called her) Amy, wherein I gave her an account of my disaster; how my husband as she called him (for I never called him so), was murdered, and as I did not know how his relations or his wife's friends might act upon that occasion, I ordered her to convey away all the plate, linen, and other things of value and to secure them in a person's hands that I directed her to, and then to sell or dispose the furniture of the house if she could, and so, without acquainting anybody with the reason of her going, withdraw, sending notice to his head manager at London that the house was quitted by the tenant, and they might come and take possession of it for the executors. Amy was so dexterous, and did her work so nimbly, that she gutted the house, and sent the key to the said manager almost as soon as he had notice of the misfortune that befell their master.
Upon their receiving the surprising news of his death, the head manager came over to Paris and came to the house. I made no scruple of calling myself Madame ----, the widow of Monsieur ----, the English jeweller; and as I spoke French naturally, I did not let him know but that I was his wife, married in France, and that I had not heard that he had any wife in England, but pretended to be surprised, and exclaimed against him for so base an action; and that I had good friends in Poitou, where I was born, who would take care to have justice done me in England out of his estate.
I should have observed that as soon as the news was public of a man being murdered, and that he was a jeweller, fame did me the favour as to publish presently that he was robbed of his casket of jewels, which he always carried about with him. I confirmed this, among my daily lamentations, for his disaster, and added that he had with him a fine diamond ring which he was known to wear frequently about him, valued at 100 pistoles, a gold watch, and a great quantity of diamonds of inestimable value in his casket, which jewels he was carrying to the Prince of, to show some of them to him; and the Prince owned that he had spoken to him to bring some such jewels to let him see them. But I sorely repented this part afterwards, as you shall hear.
This rumour put an end to all enquiry after his jewels, his ring, or his watch; and as for the 700 pistoles, that I secured. For the bills which were in hand, I owned I had them; but that as, I said, I brought my husband 30,000 livres portion, I claimed the said bills, which came to not above 12,000 livres, for my amende; and this, with the plate and the household stuff, was the principal of all his estate which they could come at. As to the foreign bill which he was going to Versailles to get accepted, it was really lost with him; but his manager, who had remitted the bill to him by way of Amsterdam, bringing over the second bill, the money was saved, as they called it, which would otherwise have been also gone. The thieves who robbed and murdered him were, to be sure, afraid to send anybody to get the bill accepted, for that would undoubtedly have discovered them.
By this time my maid Amy was arrived, and she gave me an account of her management and how she had secured everything, and that she had quitted the house and sent the key to the head manager of his business, and let me know how much she had made of everything, very punctually and honestly.
I should have observed in the account of his dwelling with me so long at ----, that he never passed for anything there but a lodger in the house, and though he was landlord, that did not alter the case; so that at his death, Amy coming to quit the house and give them the key, there was no affinity between that and the case of their master who was newly killed.
I got good advice at Paris from an eminent lawyer, a counsellor of the parliament there, and, laying my case before him, he directed me to make a process in dower upon the estate for making good my new fortune upon matrimony, which accordingly I did; and, upon the whole, the manager went back to England well satisfied that he had gotten the unaccepted bills of exchange, which was for £2,500, with some other things, which together amounted to 17,000 livres, and thus I got rid of him.
I was visited with great civility on this sad occasion of the loss of my husband (as they thought him) by a great many ladies of quality; and the Prince of ---- to whom it was reported he was carrying the jewels, sent his gentleman with a very handsome compliment of condolence to me; and his gentleman, whether with or without order, hinted as if His Highness did intend to have visited me himself, but that some accident, which he made a long story of, had prevented him.
By the concourse of ladies and others that thus came to visit me I began to be much known, and as I did not forget to set myself out with all possible advantage, considering the dress of a widow, which in those days was a most frightful thing--I say, as I did thus from my own vanity, for I was not ignorant that I was very handsome--I say, on this account I was soon made very public, and was known by the name of La belle veuve de Poitou, or 'The pretty widow of Poitou.' As I was very well pleased to see myself thus handsomely used in my affliction, it soon dried up all my tears; and though I appeared as a widow, yet, as we say in England, it was of a widow comforted. I took care to let the ladies see that I knew how to receive them, that I was not at a loss how to behave to any of them; and, in short, I began to be very popular there. But I had an occasion afterwards which made me decline that kind of management, as you shall hear presently.
About four days after I had received the compliments of condolence from the Prince of ----, the same gentleman he had sent before came to tell me that His Highness was coming to give me a visit. I was indeed surprised at that, and perfectly at a loss how to behave. However, as there was no remedy, I prepared to receive him as well as I could. It was not many minutes after but he was at the door, and came in, introduced by his own gentleman, as above, and after by my woman Amy.
He treated me with abundance of civility, and condoled handsomely the loss of my husband and likewise the manner of it. He told me he understood he was coming to Versailles, to himself, to show him some jewels; that it was true that he had discoursed with him about jewels, but could not imagine how any villains should hear of his coming at that time with them; that he had not ordered him to attend with them at Versailles, but told him that he would come to Paris by such a day, so that he was no way accessory to the disaster. I told him gravely I knew very well that all His Highness had said of that part was true, that these villains knew his profession, and knew, no doubt, that he always carried a casket of jewels about him, and that he always wore a diamond ring on his finger worth a hundred pistoles, which report had magnified to five hundred; and that if he had been going to any other place, it would have been the same thing. After this His Highness rose up to go, and told me he had resolved, however, to make me some reparation, and with these words put a silk purse into my hand with a hundred pistoles, and told me he would make a further compliment of a small pension, which his gentleman would inform me of.
You may be sure I behaved with a due sense of so much goodness, and offered to kneel to kiss his hand, but he took me up and saluted me, and sat down again (though before he made as if he was going away), making me sit down by him.
He then began to talk with me more familiarly; told me he hoped I was not left in bad circumstances; that Mr. ---- was reputed to be very rich, and that he had gained lately great sums by some jewels; and he hoped, he said, that I had still a fortune agreeable to the condition I had lived in before.
I replied, with some tears, which I confess were a little forced, that I believed if Mr. ---- had lived we should have been out of danger of want, but that it was impossible to estimate the loss which I had sustained, besides that of the life of my husband; that by the opinion of those that knew something of his affairs and of what value the jewels were which he intended to have shown to His Highness, he could not have less about him than the value of a hundred thousand livres; that it was a fatal blow to me and to his whole family, especially that they should be lost in such a manner.
His Highness returned, with an air of concern, that he was very sorry for it, but he hoped if I settled in Paris I might find ways to restore my fortune. At the same time he complimented me upon my being very handsome, as he was pleased to call it, and that I could not fail of admirers. I stood up and humbly thanked His Highness, but told him I had no expectations of that kind; that I thought I should be obliged to go over to England to look after my husband's effects there, which I was told were considerable; but that I did not know what justice a poor stranger would get among them; and as for Paris, my fortune being so impaired, I saw nothing before me but to go back to Poitou to my friends, where some of my relations, I hoped, might do something for me, and added that one of my brothers was an Abbot at ----, near Poitiers.
He stood up and, taking me by the hand, led me to a large looking-glass which made up the pier in the front of the parlour. "Look there, madam," said he; "is it fit that face," pointing to my figure in the glass, "should go back to Poitou? No, madam," says he, "stay and make some gentleman of quality happy, that may in return make you forget all your sorrows "; and with that he took me in his arms and, kissing me twice, told me he would see me again, but with less ceremony.
Some little time after this, but the same day, his gentleman came to me again, and with great ceremony and respect delivered me a black box tied with a scarlet riband and sealed with a noble coat of arms, which I suppose was the Prince's. There was in it a grant from His Highness, or an assignment, I know not which to call it, with a warrant to his banker to pay me two thousand livres a year during my stay in Paris, as the widow of Monsieur ---- the jeweller, mentioning the horrid murder of my late husband as the occasion of it, as above.
I received it with great submission and expressions of being infinitely obliged to his master, and of my showing myself on all occasions His Highness's most obedient servant; and after giving my most humble duty to His Highness, with the utmost acknowledgments of the obligation, etc., I went to a little cabinet, and taking out some money, which made a little sound in taking it out, offered to give him five pistoles.
He drew back, but with the greatest respect, and told me he humbly thanked me, but that he durst not take a farthing; that His Highness would take it so ill of him, he was sure he would never see his face more; but that he would not fail to acquaint His Highness what respect I had offered; and added, "I assure you, madam, you are more in the good graces of my master, the Prince of ----, than you are aware of, and I believe you will hear more of him."
Now I began to understand him, and resolved, if His Highness did come again, he should see me under no disadvantages if I could help it. I told him if His Highness did me the honour to see me again, I hoped he would not let me be so surprised as I was before; that I would be glad to have some little notice of it, and would be obliged to him if he would procure it me. He told me he was very sure that when His Highness intended to visit me he should be sent before to give me notice of it, and that he would give me as much warning of it as possible.
He came several times after this on the same errand, that is, about the settlement, the grant, requiring several things yet to be done for making it payable, without going every time to the Prince again for a fresh warrant. The particulars of this part I did not understand, but as soon as it was finished, which was above two months, the gentleman came one afternoon and said His Highness designed to visit me in the evening, but desired to be admitted without ceremony.
I prepared not my rooms only but myself, and when he came in there was nobody appeared in the house but his gentleman and my maid Amy; and of her I bid the gentleman acquaint His Highness that she was an Englishwoman, that she did not understand a word of French, and that she was one also that might be trusted.
When he came into my room I fell down at his feet before he could come to salute me, and with words that I had prepared, full of duty and respect, thanked him for his bounty and goodness to a poor desolate woman, oppressed by the weight of so terrible a disaster, and refused to rise till he would allow me the honour to kiss his hand. "Levez-mous donc," says the Prince, taking me in his arms, "I design more favours for you than this trifle "; and going on, he added, "you shall, for the future, find a friend where you did not look for it, and I resolve to let you see how kind I can be to one who is to me the most agreeable creature on earth."
I was dressed in a kind of half-mourning, had turned off my weeds, and my head, though I had yet no ribands or lace, was so dressed as failed not to set me out with advantage enough, for I began to understand his meaning; and the Prince protested I was the most beautiful creature on earth. "And where have I lived," says he, "and how ill have I been served that I should never till now be shown the finest woman in France?"
This was the way, in all the world, the most likely to break in upon my virtue, if I had been mistress of any, for I was now become the vainest creature upon earth, and particularly of my beauty; which, as other people admired, so I became every day more foolishly in love with myself than before.
He said some very kind things to me after this and sat down with me for an hour or more, when, getting up and calling his gentleman by his name, he threw open the door. "Au boire," says he; upon which his gentleman immediately brought up a little table covered with a fine damask cloth, the table no bigger than he could bring in his two hands, but upon it was set two decanters, one of champagne and the other of water, six silver plates, and a service of fine sweetmeats in fine china dishes, on a set of rings standing up about twenty inches high, one above another; below was three roasted partridges and a quail. As soon as his gentleman had set it all down he ordered him to withdraw. "Now," says the Prince, "I intend to sup with you."
When he sent away his gentleman I stood up and offered to wait on His Highness while he ate, but he positively refused, and told me "No; to-morrow you shall be the widow of Monsieur ---- the jeweller, but to-night you shall be my mistress; therefore sit here," says he, "and eat with me, or I will get up and serve."
I would then have called up my woman Amy, but I thought that would not be proper neither, so I made my excuse that since His Highness would not let his own servant wait I would not presume to let my woman come up, but if he would please to let me wait, it would be my honour to fill His Highness's wine; but, as before, he would by no means allow me, so we sat and ate together.
"Now, madam," says the Prince, "give me leave to lay aside my character, let us talk together with the freedom of equals. My quality sets me at a distance from you and makes you ceremonious, your beauty exalts you to more than an equality; I must then treat you as lovers do their mistresses, but I cannot speak the language; 'tis enough to tell you how agreeable you are to me, how I am surprised at your beauty, and resolve to make you happy and to be happy with you."
I knew not what to say to him for a good while, but blushed and, looking up towards him, said I was already made happy in the favour of a person of such rank, and had nothing to ask of His Highness but that he would believe me infinitely obliged.
After he had eaten he poured the sweetmeats into my lap, and the wine being out he called his gentleman again to take away the table, who at first only took the cloth and the remains of what was to eat away, and laying another cloth, set the table on one side of the room, with a noble service of plate upon it worth at least 200 pistoles; then having set the two decanters again upon the table, filled as before, he withdrew, for I found the fellow understood his business very well, and his lord's business too.
About half an hour after, the Prince told me that I offered to wait a little before, that if I would now take the trouble he would give me leave to give him some wine. So I went to the table, filled a glass of wine, and brought it to him on a fine salver which the glasses stood on, and brought the bottle, or decanter for water, in my other hand, to mix it as he thought fit.
He smiled and bid me look on that salver, which I did, and admired it much, for it was a very fine one indeed. "You may see," says he, "I resolve to have more of your company, for my servant shall leave you that plate for my use." I told him I believed His Highness would not take it ill that I was not furnished fit to entertain a person of his rank, and that I would take great care of it, and value myself infinitely upon the honour of His Highness's visit.
It now began to grow late and he began to take notice of it. "But," says he, "I cannot leave you; have you not a spare lodging for one night?" I told him I had but a homely lodging to entertain such a guest. He said something exceedingly kind on that head, but not fit to repeat, adding that my company would make him amends.
About midnight he sent his gentleman on an errand, after telling him aloud that he intended to stay here all night. In a little time his gentleman brought him a nightgown, slippers, two caps, a neckcloth, and a shirt, which he gave me to carry into his chamber, and sent his man home; and then, turning to me, said I should do him the honour to be his chamberlain of the household, and his dresser also. I smiled, and told him I would do myself the honour to wait on him upon all occasions.
About one in the morning, while his gentleman was yet with him, I begged leave to withdraw, supposing he would go to bed; but he took the hint, and said, "I'm not going to bed yet, pray let me see you again."
I took this time to undress me and to come in a new dress, which was in a manner un déshabillé, but so fine, and all about me so clean and so agreeable, that he seemed surprised. "I thought," says he, "you could not have dressed to more advantage than you had done before; but now," says he, "you charm me a thousand times more, if that be possible."
"It is only a loose habit, my lord," said I, "that I may the better wait on Your Highness." He pulls me to him. "You are perfectly obliging," says he; and sitting on the bedside, says he, "Now you shall be a princess and know what it is to oblige the gratefullest man alive "; and with that he took me in his arms.... I can go no further in the particulars of what passed at that time, but it ended in this, that, in short, I lay with him all night.
I have given you the whole detail of this story, to lay it down as a black scheme of the way how unhappy women are ruined by great men; for though poverty and want is an irresistible temptation to the poor, vanity and great things are as irresistible to others. To be courted by a prince, and by a prince who was first a benefactor, then an admirer, to be called handsome, the finest woman in France, and to be treated as a woman fit for the bed of a prince: these are things a woman must have no vanity in her, nay, no corruption in her, that is not overcome by it; and my case was such, that, as before, I had enough of both.
I had now no poverty attending me. On the contrary, I was mistress of ten thousand pounds before the Prince did anything for me. Had I been mistress of my resolution, had I been less obliging and rejected the first attack, all had been safe; but my virtue was lost before, and the devil, who had found the way to break in upon me by one temptation, easily mastered me now by another, and I gave myself up to a person who, though a man of high dignity, was yet the most tempting and obliging that ever I met with in my life.
I had the same particular to insist upon here with the Prince that I had with my gentleman before. I hesitated much at consenting at first asking, but the Prince told me princes did not court like other men, that they brought more powerful arguments, and he very prettily added that they were sooner repulsed than other men and ought to be sooner complied with, intimating, though very genteelly, that after a woman had positively refused him once, he could not, like other men, wait with importunities and stratagems and laying long sieges; but as such men as he stormed warmly, so, if repulsed, they made no second attacks; and indeed it was but reasonable, for as it was below their rank to be long battering a woman's constancy, so they ran greater hazards in being exposed in their amours than other men did.
I took this for a satisfactory answer, and told His Highness that I had the same thoughts in respect to the manner of his attacks, for that his person and his arguments were irresistible; that a person of his rank and a munificence so unbounded could not be withstood; that no virtue was proof against him, except such as was able too to suffer martyrdom; that I thought it impossible I could be overcome, but that now I found it was impossible I should not be overcome; that so much goodness, joined with so much greatness, would have conquered a saint; and that I confessed he had the victory over me by a merit infinitely superior to the conquest he had made.
He made me a most obliging answer; told me abundance of fine things which still flattered my vanity, till at last I began to have pride enough to believe