Chapter
11
‘Then, madam,’ says
she, ‘if the child should not live, or should be dead-born, as you know
sometimes happens, then there is the minister’s article saved; and if you have
no friends to come to you, you may save the expense of a supper; so that take
those articles out, madam,’ says she, ‘your lying in will not cost you
above
This was the most
reasonable thing that I ever heard of; so I smiled, and told her I would come
and be her customer; but I told her also, that as I had two months and
more to do, I might perhaps be obliged to stay longer with her than three
months, and desired to know if she would not be obliged to remove me before it
was proper. No, she said; her house was large, and besides, she never
put anybody to remove, that had lain in, till they were willing to go; and if
she had more ladies offered, she was not so ill- beloved among her Neighbours
but she could provide accommodations for twenty, if there was occasion.
I found she was an
eminent lady in her way; and, in short, I agreed to put myself into her
hands, and promised her. She then talked of other things, looked about into my
accommodations where I was, found fault with my wanting attendance and
conveniences, and that I should not be used so at her house. I told her
I was shy of speaking, for the woman of the house looked stranger, or at least
I thought so, since I had been ill, because I was with child; and I was afraid
she would put some affront or other upon me, supposing that I had been able to
give but a slight account of myself.
‘Oh dear,’ said she,
‘her ladyship is no stranger to these things; she has tried to entertain ladies
in your condition several times, but she could not secure the parish; and
besides, she is not such a nice lady as you take her to be; however, since you
are a-going, you shall not meddle with her, but I’ll see you are a little
better looked after while you are here than I think you are, and it shall not
cost you the more neither.’
I did not understand her
at all; however, I thanked her, and so we parted. The next morning she sent me
a chicken roasted and hot, and a pint bottle of sherry, and ordered the maid to
tell me that she was to wait on me every day as long as I stayed there.
This was surprisingly
good and kind, and I accepted it very willingly. At night she sent to me again,
to know if I wanted anything, and how I did, and to order the maid to come to
her in the morning with my dinner. The maid had orders to make me some
chocolate in the morning before she came away, and did so, and at noon she
brought me the sweetbread of a breast of veal, whole, and a dish of soup for my
dinner; and after this manner she nursed me up at a distance, so that I was
mightily well pleased, and quickly well, for indeed my dejections before were
the principal part of my illness.
I expected, as is
usually the case among such people, that the servant she sent me would have
been some imprudent brazen wench of Drury-Lane breeding, and I was very
uneasy at having her with me upon that account; so I would not let her lie in
that house the first night by any means, but had my eyes about me as narrowly
as if she had been a public thief.
My gentlewoman guessed
presently what was the matter, and sent her back with a short note, that I
might depend upon the honesty of her maid; that she would be answerable for her
upon all accounts; and that she took no servants into her house without very
good security for their fidelity. I was then perfectly easy; and indeed the
maid’s behaviour spoke for itself, for a modester, quieter, soberer girl never
came into anybody’s family, and I found her so afterwards.
As soon as I was well
enough to go abroad, I went with the maid to see the house, and to see the
apartment I was to have; and everything was so handsome and so clean and well,
that, in short, I had nothing to say, but was wonderfully pleased and satisfied
with what I had met with, which, considering the melancholy circumstances I was
in, was far beyond what I looked for.
It might be expected
that I should give some account of the nature of the wicked practices of this
woman, in whose hands I was now fallen; but it would be too much encouragement
to the vice, to let the world see what easy measures were here taken to rid the
women’s unwelcome Burthen of a child clandestinely gotten. This grave matron
had several sorts of practice, and this was one particular, that if a child was
born, though not in her house (for she had occasion to be called to many
private Labours, she had people at hand, who for a piece of money would take
the child off their hands, and off from the hands of the parish too; and those
children, as she said, were honestly provided for and taken care of. What
should become of them all, considering so many, as by her account she was
concerned with, I cannot conceive.
I had many times
discourses upon that subject with her; but she was full of this argument, that
she save the life of many an innocent lamb, as she called them, which would
otherwise perhaps have been murdered; and of many women who, made desperate by
the misfortune, would otherwise be tempted to destroy their children, and bring
themselves to the gallows. I granted her that this was true, and a very
commendable thing, provided the poor children fell into good hands afterwards,
and were not abused, starved, and neglected by the nurses that bred them up.
She answered, that she always took care of that, and had no nurses in her
business but what were very good, honest people, and such as might be depended
upon.
I could say nothing to
the contrary, and so was obliged to say, ‘Madam, I do not question you do your
part honestly, but what those people do afterwards is the main question’; and
she stopped my mouth again with saying that she took the utmost care about it.
The only thing I found
in all her conversation on these subjects that gave me any distaste, was, that
one time in discouraging about my being far gone with child, and the time I
expected to come, she said something that looked as if she could help me off
with my Burthen sooner, if I was willing; or, in English, that she could
give me something to make me miscarry, if I had a desire to put an end to my
troubles that way; but I soon let her see that I abhorred the thoughts of it;
and, to do her justice, she put it off so cleverly, that I could not say she
really intended it, or whether she only mentioned the practice as a horrible
thing; for she couched her words so well, and took my meaning so quickly, that
she gave her negative before I could explain myself.
To bring this part into
as narrow a compass as possible, I quitted my lodging at St. Jones’s and
went to my new governess, for so they called her in the house, and there I was
indeed treated with so much courtesy, so carefully looked to, so handsomely provided,
and everything so well, that I was surprised at it, and could not at first see
what advantage my governess made of it; but I found afterwards that she
professed to make no profit of lodgers’ diet, nor indeed could she get much by
it, but that her profit lay in the other articles of her management, and she
made enough that way, I assure you; for ’tis scarce credible what practice she
had, as well abroad as at home, and yet all upon the private account, or, in
plain English, the whoring account.
While I was in her
house, which was near four months, she had no less than twelve ladies of
pleasure brought to bed within the doors, and I think she had two-and-thirty,
or thereabouts, under her conduct without doors, whereof one, as nice as she
was with me, was lodged with my old landlady at St. Jones’s.
This was a strange
testimony of the growing vice of the age, and such a one, that as bad as I had
been myself, it shocked my very senses. I began to nauseate the place I was in
and, about all, the wicked practice; and yet I must say that I never saw, or do
I believe there was to be seen, the least indecency in the house the whole time
I was there.
Not a man was ever seen
to come upstairs, except to visit the lying-in ladies within their month, nor
then without the old lady with them, who made it a piece of Honour of her
management that no man should touch a woman, no, not his own wife, within the
month; nor would she permit any man to lie in the house upon any pretence
whatever, no, not though she was sure it was with his own wife; and her general
saying for it was, that she cared not how many children were born in her house,
but she would have none got there if she could help it.
It might perhaps be
carried further than was needful, but it was an error of the right hand if it
was an error, for by this she kept up the reputation, such as it was, of her
business, and obtained this character, that though she did take care of the
women when they were debauched, yet she was not instrumental to their being
debauched at all; and yet it was a wicked trade she drove too.
While I was there, and
before I was brought to bed, I received a letter from my trustee at the bank,
full of kind, obliging things, and earnestly pressing me to return to
I returned an answer to
his letter, and dated it at Leverpool, but sent it by messenger,
alleging that it came in cover to a friend in town. I gave him joy of his
deliverance, but raised some scruples at the lawfulness of his marrying again,
and told him I supposed he would consider very seriously upon that point before
he resolved on it, the consequence being too great for a man of his judgment to
venture rashly upon a thing of that nature; so concluded, wishing him very well
in whatever he resolved, without letting him into anything of my own mind, or
giving any answer to his proposal of my coming to London to him, but
mentioned at a distance my intention to return the latter end of the year, this
being dated in April.
I was brought to bed
about the middle of May and had another brave boy, and myself in as good
condition as usual on such occasions. My governess did her part as a midwife
with the greatest art and dexterity imaginable, and far beyond all that ever I
had had any experience of before.
Her care of me in my
travail, and after in my lying in, was such, that if she had been my own mother
it could not have been better. Let none be encouraged in their loose practices
from this dexterous lady’s management, for she is gone to her place, and I dare
say has left nothing behind her that can or will come up on it.
I think I had been
brought to bed about twenty-two days when I received another letter from my
friend at the bank, with the surprising news that he had obtained a final
sentence of divorce against his wife, and had served her with it on such a day,
and that he had such an answer to give to all my scruples about his marrying
again, as I could not expect, and as he had no desire of; for that his wife,
who had been under some remorse before for her usage of him, as soon as she had
the account that he had gained his point, had very unhappily destroyed herself
that same evening.
He expressed himself
very handsomely as to his being concerned at her disaster, but cleared himself
of having any hand in it, and that he had only done himself justice in a case
in which he was notoriously injured and abused. However, he said that he was
extremely afflicted at it, and had no view of any satisfaction left in his
world, but only in the hope that I would come and relieve him by my company;
and then he pressed me violently indeed to give him some hopes that I would at
least come up to town and let him see me, when he would further enter into
discourse about it.
I was exceedingly
surprised at the news, and began now seriously to reflect on my present
circumstances, and the inexpressible misfortune it was to me to have a child
upon my hands, and what to do in it I knew not. At last I opened my case at a
distance to my governess. I appeared melancholy and uneasy for several days,
and she lay at me continually to know what trouble me. I could not for my life
tell her that I had an offer of marriage, after I had so often told her that I
had a husband, so that I really knew not what to say to her. I owned I had
something which very much troubled me, but at the same time told her I could
not speak of it to any one alive.
She continued
importuning me several days, but it was impossible, I told her, for me
to commit the secret to anybody. This, instead of being an answer to her,
increased her importunities; she urged her having been trusted with the
greatest secrets of this nature, that it was her business to conceal
everything, and that to discover things of that nature would be her ruin. She
asked me if ever I had found her tattling to me of other people’s affairs, and
how could I suspect her? She told me, to unfold myself to her was
telling it to nobody; that she was silent as death; that it must be a very
strange case indeed that she could not help me out of; but to conceal it was to
deprive myself of all possible help, or means of help, and to deprive her of
the opportunity of serving me. In short, she had such a bewitching
eloquence, and so great a power of persuasion that there was no concealing
anything from her.
So I resolved to
unbosome myself to her. I told her the history of my Lancashire
marriage, and how both of us had been disappointed; how we came together, and
how we parted; how he absolutely discharged me, as far as lay in him, free
liberty to marry again, protesting that if he knew it he would never claim me,
or disturb or expose me; that I thought I was free, but was dreadfully afraid
to venture, for fear of the consequences that might follow in case of a
discovery.
Then I told her what a
good offer I had; showed her my friend’s two last letters, inviting me to come
to London, and let her see with what affection and earnestness they were
written, but blotted out the name, and also the story about the disaster of his
wife, only that she was dead.
She fell a-laughing at
my scruples about marrying, and told me the other was no marriage, but a cheat
on both sides; and that, as we were parted by mutual consent, the nature of the
contract was destroyed, and the obligation was mutually discharged. She had
arguments for this at the tip of her tongue; and, in short, reasoned me
out of my reason; not but that it was too by the help of my own inclination.
But then came the great
and main difficulty, and that was the child; this, she told me in so many
words, must be removed, and that so as that it should never be possible for any
one to discover it. I knew there was no marrying without entirely concealing
that I had had a child, for he would soon have discovered by the age of it that
it was born, nay, and gotten too, since my parley with him, and that would have
destroyed all the affair.
But it touched my heart
so forcibly to think of parting entirely with the child, and, for aught I knew,
of having it murdered, or starved by neglect and ill-usage (which was much the
same), that I could not think of it without horror. I wish all those women who
consent to the disposing their children out of the way, as it is called,
for decency sake, would consider that ’tis only a contrived method for murder;
that is to say, a-killing their children with safety.
It is manifest to all
that understand anything of children, that we are born into the world helpless,
and incapable either to supply our own wants or so much as make them known; and
that without help we must perish; and this help requires not only an assisting
hand, whether of the mother or somebody else, but there are two things
necessary in that assisting hand, that is, care and skill; without both which,
half the children that are born would die, nay, thought they were not to be
denied food; and one half more of those that remained would be cripples or
fools, lose their limbs, and perhaps their sense. I question not but that these
are partly the reasons why affection was placed by nature in the hearts of
mothers to their children; without which they would never be able to give
themselves up, as ’tis necessary they should, to the care and waking pains
needful to the support of their children.
Since this care is
needful to the life of children, to neglect them is to murder them; again, to
give them up to be managed by those people who have none of that needful
affection placed by nature in them, is to neglect them in the highest degree;
nay, in some it goes farther, and is a neglect in order to their being lost; so
that ’tis even an intentional murder, whether the child lives or dies.
All those things
represented themselves to my view, and that is the blackest and most frightful
form: and as I was very free with my governess, whom I had now learned to call
mother, I represented to her all the dark thoughts which I had upon me about
it, and told her what distress I was in. She seemed graver by much at this part
than at the other; but as she was hardened in these things beyond all
possibility of being touched with the religious part, and the scruples about
the murder, so she was equally impenetrable in that part which related to
affection. She asked me if she had not been careful and tender to me in my
lying in, as if I had been her own child. I told her I owned she had. ‘Well, my
dear,’ says she, ‘and when you are gone, what are you to me? And what would it
be to me if you were to be hanged? Do you think there are not women who, as it
is their trade and they get their bread by it, value themselves upon their
being as careful of children as their own mothers can be, and understand it
rather better? Yes, yes, child,’ says she, ‘fear it not; how were we
nursed ourselves? Are you sure you was nursed up by your own mother? and yet
you look fat and fair, child,’ says the old beldam; and with that she stroked
me over the face. ‘Never be concerned, child,’ says she, going on in her
drolling way; ‘I have no murderers about me; I employ the best and the
honestest nurses that can be had, and have as few children miscarry under their
hands as there would if they were all nursed by mothers; we want neither care
nor skill.’
She touched me to the
quick when she asked if I was sure that I was nursed by my own mother; on the
contrary I was sure I was not; and I trembled, and looked pale at the very
expression. ‘Sure,’ said I to myself, ‘this creature cannot be a witch, or have
any conversation with a spirit, that can inform her what was done with me
before I was able to know it myself’; and I looked at her as if I had been
frightened; but reflecting that it could not be possible for her to know
anything about me, that disorder went off, and I began to be easy, but it was
not presently.
She perceived the
disorder I was in, but did not know the meaning of it; so she ran on in her
wild talk upon the weakness of my supposing that children were murdered because
they were not all nursed by the mother, and to persuade me that the children
she disposed of were as well used as if the mothers had the nursing of them
themselves.
‘It may be true,
mother,’ says I, ‘for aught I know, but my doubts are very strongly
grounded indeed.’ ‘Come, then,’ says she, ‘let’s hear some of them.’
‘Why, first,’ says I, ‘you give a piece of money to these people to take
the child off the parent’s hands, and to take care of it as long as it lives.
Now we know, mother,’ said I, ‘that those are poor people, and their
gain consists in being quit of the charge as soon as they can; how can I doubt
but that, as it is best for them to have the child die, they are not over
solicitous about life?’
‘This is all Vapours and
fancy,’ says the old woman; ‘I tell you their credit depends upon the
child’s life, and they are as careful as any mother of you all.’
‘O mother,’ says I,
‘if I was but sure my little baby would be carefully looked to, and have
justice done it, I should be happy indeed; but it is impossible I can be
satisfied in that point unless I saw it, and to see it would be ruin and
destruction to me, as now my case stands; so what to do I know not.’
‘A fine story!’ says
the governess. ‘You would see the child, and you would not see the child;
you would be concealed and discovered both together. These are things
impossible, my dear; so you must e’n do as other conscientious mothers have
done before you, and be contented with things as they must be, though they are
not as you wish them to be.’
I understood what she
meant by conscientious mothers; she would have said conscientious whores, but
she was not willing to disoblige me, for really in this case I was not a whore,
because legally married, the force of former marriage excepted.
However, let me be what
I would, I was not come up to that pitch of hardness common to the profession;
I mean, to be unnatural, and regardless of the safety of my child; and I
preserved this honest affection so long, that I was upon the point of giving up
my friend at the bank, who lay so hard at me to come to him and marry
him, that, in short, there was hardly any room to deny him.
At last my old governess
came to me, with her usual assurance. ‘Come, my dear,’ says she, ‘I have
found out a way how you shall be at a certainty that your child shall be used
well, and yet the people that take care of it shall never know you, or who the
mother of the child is.’
‘Oh mother,’ says I,
‘if you can do so, you will engage me to you for ever.’ ‘Well,’ says she,
‘are you willing to be a some small annual expense, more than what we usually
give to the people we contract with?’ ‘Ay,’ says I, ‘with all my heart,
provided I may be concealed.’ ‘As to that,’ says the governess, ‘you
shall be secure, for the nurse shall never so much as dare to inquire about
you, and you shall once or twice a year go with me and see your child, and see
how ’tis used, and be satisfied that it is in good hands, nobody knowing who
you are.’
‘Why,’ said I,
‘do you think, mother, that when I come to see my child, I shall be able to
conceal my being the mother of it? Do you think that possible?’
‘Well, well,’ says my
governess, ‘if you discover it, the nurse shall be never the wiser; for she
shall be forbid to ask any questions about you, or to take any notice. If she
offers it, she shall lose the money which you are suppose to give her, and the
child shall be taken from her too.’
I was very well pleased
with this. So the next week a countrywoman was brought from Hertford, or
thereabouts, who was to take the child off our hands entirely for
The woman was very
wholesome-looking, a likely woman, a cottager’s wife, but she had very good
clothes and linen, and everything well about her; and with a heavy heart and
many a tear, I let her have my child. I had been down at Hertford, and
looked at her and at her dwelling, which I liked well enough; and I promised
her great things if she would be kind to the child, so she knew at first word
that I was the child’s mother. But she seemed to be so much out of the way, and
to have no room to inquire after me, that I thought I was safe enough. So, in
short, I consented to let her have the child, and I gave her
I then began to write to
my friend at the bank in a more kindly style, and particularly about the
beginning of July I sent him a letter, that I proposed to be in town
some time in August. He returned me an answer in the most passionate
terms imaginable, and desired me to let him have timely notice, and he would
come and meet me, two day’s journey. This puzzled me scurvily, and I did not
know what answer to make of it. Once I resolved to take the stage-coach to West-Chester,
on purpose only to have the satisfaction of coming back, that he might see me
really come in the same coach; for I had a jealous thought, though I had no
ground for it at all, lest he should think I was not really in the country. And
it was no ill-grounded thought as you shall hear presently.
I endeavour’d to reason
myself out of it, but it was in vain; the impression lay so strong on my mind,
that it was not to be resisted. At last it came as an addition to my new design
of going into the country, that it would be an excellent blind to my old
governess, and would cover entirely all my other affairs, for she did not know
in the least whether my new lover lived in London or in Lancashire;
and when I told her my resolution, she was fully persuaded it was in Lancashire.
Having taken my measure
for this journey I let her know it, and sent the maid that tended me, from the
beginning, to take a place for me in the coach. She would have had me let the
maid have waited on me down to the last stage, and come up again in the Waggon,
but I convinced her it would not be convenient. When I went away, she told me
she would enter into no measures for correspondence, for she saw evidently that
my affection to my child would cause me to write to her, and to visit her too
when I came to town again. I assured her it would, and so took my leave, well satisfied
to have been freed from such a house, however good my accommodations there had
been, as I have related above.
I took the place in the
coach not to its full extent, but to a place called Stone, in Cheshire,
I think it is, where I not only had no manner of business, but not so much as
the least acquaintance with any person in the town or near it. But I knew that
with money in the pocket one is at home anywhere; so I lodged there two or
three days, till, watching my opportunity, I found room in another stage-coach,
and took passage back again for London, sending a letter to my gentleman
that I should be such a certain day at Stony-Stratford, where the
coachman told me he was to lodge.
It happened to be a
chance coach that I had taken up, which, having been hired on purpose to carry
some gentlemen to West-Chester who were going for Ireland, was
now returning, and did not tie itself to exact times or places as the stages
did; so that, having been obliged to lie still on Sunday, he had time to
get himself ready to come out, which otherwise he could not have done.
However, his warning was
so short, that he could not reach to Stony-Stratford time enough to be
with me at night, but he met me at a place called Brickill the next morning, as
we were just coming in to tow.
I confess I was very
glad to see him, for I had thought myself a little disappointed over-night,
seeing I had gone so far to contrive my coming on purpose. He pleased me doubly
too by the figure he came in, for he brought a very handsome (gentleman’s)
coach and four horses, with a servant to attend him.
He took me out of the
stage-coach immediately, which stopped at an inn in Brickill; and
putting into the same in, he set up his own coach, and bespoke his dinner. I
asked him what he meant by that, for I was for going forward with the journey.
He said, No, I had need of a little rest upon the road, and that was a very
good sort of a house, though it was but a little town; so we would go no
farther that night, whatever came of it.
I did not press him
much, for since he had come so to meet me, and put himself to so much expense,
it was but reasonable I should oblige him a little too; so I was easy as to
that point.
After dinner we walked
to see the town, to see the church, and to view the fields, and the country, as
is usual for strangers to do; and our landlord was our guide in going to see
the church. I observed my gentleman inquired pretty much about the parson, and
I took the hint immediately that he certainly would propose to be married; and
though it was a sudden thought, it followed presently, that, in short, I would
not refuse him; for, to be plain, with my circumstances I was in no condition
now to say No; I had no reason now to run any more such hazards.
But while these thoughts
ran round in my head, which was the work but of a few moments, I observed my
landlord took him aside and whispered to him, though not very softly neither,
for so much I overheard: ‘Sir, if you shall have occasion—’ the rest I
could not hear, but it seems it was to this purpose: ‘Sir, if you shall have
occasion for a minister, I have a friend a little way off that will serve you,
and be as private as you please.’ My gentleman answered loud enough for me
to hear, ‘Very well, I believe I shall.’
I was no sooner come
back to the inn but he fell upon me with irresistible words, that since he had
had the good fortune to meet me, and everything concurred, it would be
hastening his felicity if I would put an end to the matter just there. ‘What do
you mean?’ says I, colouring a little. ‘What, in an inn, and upon the
road! Bless us all,’ said I, as if I had been surprised, ‘how can you
talk so?’ ‘Oh, I can talk so very well,’ says he, ‘I came a-purpose to
talk so, and I’ll show you that I did’; and with that he pulls out a great bundle
of papers. ‘You fright me,’ said I; ‘what are all these?’ ‘Don’t be
frighted, my dear,’ said he, and kissed me. This was the first time
that he had been so free to call me ‘my dear’; then he repeated it, ‘Don’t
be frighted; you shall see what it is all’; then he laid them all abroad. There
was first the deed or sentence of divorce from his wife, and the full evidence
of her playing the whore; then there were the certificates of the minister and
Church-wardens of the parish where she lived, proving that she was buried, and
intimating the manner of her death; the copy of the coroner’s warrant for a
jury to sit upon her, and the verdict of the jury, who brought it in Non
Compos Mentis. All this was indeed to the purpose, and to give me
satisfaction, though, by the way, I was not so scrupulous, had he known all,
but that I might have taken him without it. However, I looked them all over as
well as I could, and told him that this was all very clear indeed, but that he
need not have given himself the trouble to have brought them out with him, for
it was time enough. Well, he said, it might be time enough for me, but no time
but the present time was time enough for him.
© Bibliomania.com Ltd,