Chapter
8
He seemed distasted a
little at her talking as she did at first, as well as I, taking it, as I
fancied he would, as something forward of her; but when he saw me give such an
answer, he came immediately to himself again. The next morning we talked of it
again, when I found he was fully satisfied, and, smiling, said he hoped I would
not want money and not tell him of it, and that I had promised him otherwise. I
told him I had been very much dissatisfied at my landlady’s talking so publicly
the day before of what she had nothing to do with; but I supposed she wanted
what I owed her, which was about eight guineas, which I had resolved to give
her, and had accordingly given it her the same night she talked so foolishly.
He was in a might good
humour when he heard me say I had paid her, and it went off into some
other discourse at that time. But the next morning, he having heard me up about
my room before him, he called to me, and I answering, he asked me to
come into his chamber. He was in bed when I came in, and he made me come and
sit down on his bedside, for he said he had something to say to me which
was of some moment. After some very kind expressions, he asked me if I would be
very honest to him, and give a sincere answer to one thing he would desire of
me. After some little cavil at the word ‘sincere,’ and asking him if I had ever
given him any answers which were not sincere, I promised him I would. Why,
then, his request was, he said, to let him see my purse. I immediately
put my hand into my pocket, and laughing to him, pulled it out, and
there was in it three guineas and a half. Then he asked me if there was
all the money I had. I told him No, laughing again, not by a great deal.
Well, then, he said,
he would have me promise to go and fetch him all the money I had, every
farthing. I told him I would, and I went into my chamber and fetched him
a little private drawer, where I had about six guineas more, and some silver,
and threw it all down upon the bed, and told him there was all my wealth, honestly
to a shilling. He looked a little at it, but did not tell it, and huddled it
all into the drawer again, and then reaching his pocket, pulled out a key, and
bade me open a little walnut-tree box he had upon the table, and bring him such
a drawer, which I did. In which drawer there was a great deal of money in gold,
I believe near two hundred guineas, but I knew not how much. He took the
drawer, and taking my hand, made me put it in and take a whole handful. I was
backward at that, but he held my hand hard in his hand, and put it into the
drawer, and made me take out as many guineas almost as I could well take up at
once.
When I had done so, he
made me put them into my lap, and took my little drawer, and poured out all my
money among his, and bade me get me gone, and carry it all home into my own
chamber.
I relate this story the
more particularly because of the good-humour there was in it, and to show the
temper with which we conversed. It was not long after this but he began every
day to find fault with my clothes, with my laces and head dresses, and, in a
word, pressed me to buy better; which, by the way, I was willing enough to do,
though I did not seem to be so, for I loved nothing in the world better than
fine clothes. I told him I must housewife the money he had lent me, or else I
should not be able to pay him again. He then told me, in a few words, that as
he had a sincere respect for me, and knew my circumstances, he had not lent me
that money, but given it me, and that he thought I had merited it from him by
giving him my company so entirely as I had done. After this he made me take a
maid, and keep house, and his friend that come with him to Bath being
gone, he obliged me to diet him, which I did very willingly, believing, as
it appeared, that I should lose nothing by it, not did the woman of the
house fail to find her account in it too.
We had lived thus near
three months, when the company beginning to wear away at the Bath, he
talked of going away, and fain he would have me to go to
He consented, and I
brought him to the Bath, which was about fifteen miles, as I remember.
Here he continued very ill of a fever, and kept his bed five weeks, all which
time I nursed him and tended him myself, as much and as carefully as if I had
been his wife; indeed, if I had been his wife I could not have done more. I sat
up with him so much and so often, that at last, indeed, he would not let me sit
up any longer, and then I got a pallet-bed into his room, and lay in it just at
his bed’s feet.
I was indeed sensibly
affected with his condition, and with the apprehension of losing such a friend
as he was, and was like to be to me, and I used to sit and cry by him many
hours together. However, at last he grew better, and gave hopes that he would
recover, as indeed he did, though very slowly.
Were it otherwise than
what I am going to say, I should not be backward to disclose it, as it is
apparent I have done in other cases in this account; but I affirm, that through
all this conversation, abating the freedom of coming into the chamber when I or
he was in bed, and abating the necessary offices of attending him night and day
when he was sick, there had not passed the least immodest word or action
between us. Oh that it had been so to the last!
After some time he
gathered strength and grew well apace, and I would have removed my pallet-bed,
but he would not let me, till he was able to venture himself without anybody to
sit up with him, and then I removed to my own chamber.
He took many occasions
to express his sense of my tenderness and concern for him; and when he grew
quite well, he made me a present of fifty guineas for my care and, as he called
it, for hazarding my life to save his.
And now he made deep
protestations of a sincere inviolable affection for me, but all along attested
it to be with the utmost reserve for my virtue and his own. I told him I was
fully satisfied of it. He carried it that length that he protested to me, that
if he was naked in bed with me, he would as sacredly preserve my virtue as he
would defend it if I was assaulted by a ravisher. I believed him, and told him
I did so; but this did not satisfy him, he would, he said, wait for some
opportunity to give me an undoubted testimony of it.
It was a great while
after this that I had occasion, on my own business, to go to Bristol,
upon which he hired me a coach, and would go with me, and did so; and now
indeed our intimacy increased. From
At last, repeating his
usual saying, that he could lie naked in the bed with me and not offer me the
least injury, he starts out of his bed. ‘And now, my dear,’ says he,
‘you shall see how just I will be to you, and that I can keep my word,’ and
away he comes to my bed.
I resisted a little, but
I must confess I should not have resisted him much if he had not made those
promises at all; so after a little struggle, as I said, I lay still and
let him come to bed. When he was there he took me in his arms, and so I lay all
night with him, but he had no more to do with me, or offered anything to me,
other than embracing me, as I say, in his arms, no, not the whole night, but rose
up and dressed him in the morning, and left me as innocent for him as I was the
day I was born.
This was a surprising
thing to me, and perhaps may be so to others, who know how the laws of nature
work; for he was a strong, vigorous, brisk person; nor did he act thus on a
principle of religion at all, but of mere affection; insisting on it,
that though I was to him to most agreeable woman in the world, yet, because he
loved me, he could not injure me.
I own it was a noble
principle, but as it was what I never understood before, so it was to me
perfectly amazing. We traveled the rest of the journey as we did before, and
came back to the Bath, where, as he had opportunity to come to me when
he would, he often repeated the moderation, and I frequently lay with him, and
he with me, and although all the familiarities between man and wife were common
to us, yet he never once offered to go any farther, and he valued himself much
upon it. I do not say that I was so wholly pleased with it as he thought I was,
for I own much wickeder than he, as you shall hear presently.
We lived thus near two
years, only with this exception, that he went three times to
Had we continued thus, I
confess we had had much to boast of; but as wise men say, it is ill venturing
too near the brink of a command, so we found it; and here again I must do him
the justice to own that the first breach was not on his part. It was one night
that we were in bed together warm and merry, and having drunk, I think, a
little more wine that night, both of us, than usual, although not in the least
to disorder either of us, when, after some other follies which I cannot name,
and being clasped close in his arms, I told him (I repeat it with
shame and horror of soul) that I could find in my heart to discharge him of
his engagement for one night and no more.
He took me at my word
immediately, and after that there was no resisting him; neither indeed had I
any mind to resist him any more, let what would come of it.
Thus the government of
our virtue was broken, and I exchanged the place of friend for that unmusical,
harsh-sounding title of whore. In the morning we were both at our penitentials;
I cried very heartily, he expressed himself very sorry; but that was all either
of us could do at that time, and the way being thus cleared, and the bars of
virtue and conscience thus removed, we had the less difficult afterwards to
struggle with.
It was but a dull kind
of conversation that we had together for all the rest of that week; I looked on
him with blushes, and every now and then started that melancholy objection, ‘What
if I should be with child now? What will become of me then?’ He encouraged
me by telling me, that as long as I was true to him, he would be so to me; and
since it was gone such a length (which indeed he never intended), yet if I was
with child, he would take care of that, and of me too. This hardened us both. I
assured him if I was with child, I would die for want of a midwife rather than
name him as the father of it; and he assured me I should never want if I should
be with child. These mutual assurances hardened us in the thing, and after this
we repeated the crime as often as we pleased, till at length, as I had feared,
so it came to pass, and I was indeed with child.
After I was sure it was
so, and I had satisfied him of it too, we began to think of taking measures for
the managing it, and I proposed trusting the secret to my landlady, and asking
her advice, which he agreed to. My landlady, a woman (as I found) used to such
things, made light of it; she said she knew it would come to that at last, and
made us very merry about it. As I said above, we found her an experienced old
lady at such work; she undertook everything, engaged to procure a midwife and a
nurse, to satisfy all inquiries, and bring us off with reputation, and she did
so very dexterously indeed.
When I grew near my time
she desired my gentleman to go away to
As he had furnished me
very sufficiently with money for the extraordinary expenses of my lying in, I
had everything very handsome about me, but did not affect to be gay or
extravagant neither; besides, knowing my own circumstances, and knowing the
world as I had done, and that such kind of things do not often last long, I
took care to lay up as much money as I could for a wet day, as I called it;
making him believe it was all spent upon the extraordinary appearance of things
in my lying in.
By this means, and
including what he had given me as above, I had at the end of my lying in about
two hundred guineas by me, including also what was left of my own.
I was brought to bed of
a fine boy indeed, and a charming child it was; and when he heard of it he
wrote me a very kind, obliging letter about it, and then told me, he thought it
would look better for me to come away for London as soon as I was up and
well; that he had provided apartments for me at Hammersmith, as if I
came thither only from London; and that after a little while I should go
back to the Bath, and he would go with me.
I liked this offer very
well, and accordingly hired a coach on purpose, and taking my child, and a wet-
nurse to tend and suckle it, and a maid-servant with me, away I went for
He met me at
And now I was indeed in
the height of what I might call my prosperity, and I wanted nothing but to be a
wife, which, however, could not be in this case, there was no room for it; and
therefore on all occasions I studied to save what I could, as I have said
above, against a time of scarcity, knowing well enough that such things as
these do not always continue; that men that keep mistresses often change them,
grow weary of them, or jealous of them, or something or other happens to make
them withdraw their bounty; and sometimes the ladies that are thus well used
are not careful by a prudent conduct to preserve the esteem of their persons,
or the nice article of their fidelity, and then they are justly cast off with
contempt.
But I was secured in
this point, for as I had no inclination to change, so I had no manner of
acquaintance in the whole house, and so no temptation to look any farther. I
kept no company but in the family when I lodged, and with the clergyman’s lady
at next door; so that when he was absent I visited nobody, nor did he every
find me out of my chamber or parlor whenever he came down; if I went anywhere
to take the air, it was always with him.
The living in this
manner with him, and his with me, was certainly the most undesigned thing in
the world; he often protested to me, that when he became first acquainted with
me, and even to the very night when we first broke in upon our rules, he never
had the least design of lying with me; that he always had a sincere affection
for me, but not the least real inclination to do what he had done. I assured
him I never suspected him; that if I had I should not so easily have yielded to
the freedom which brought it on, but that it was all a surprise, and was owing
to the accident of our having yielded too far to our mutual inclinations that
night; and indeed I have often observed since, and leave it as a caution to the
readers of this story, that we ought to be cautious of gratifying our inclinations
in loose and lewd freedoms, lest we find our resolutions of virtue fail us in
the junction when their assistance should be most necessary.
It is true, and I
have confessed it before, that from the first hour I began to converse with
him, I resolved to let him lie with me, if he offered it; but it was because I
wanted his help and assistance, and I knew no other way of securing him than
that. But when were that night together, and, as I have said, had gone such a
length, I found my weakness; the inclination was not to be resisted, but I was
obliged to yield up all even before he asked it.
However, he was so just
to me that he never upbraided me with that; nor did he ever express the least
dislike of my conduct on any other occasion, but always protested he was as
much delighted with my company as he was the first hour we came together: I
mean, came together as bedfellows.
It is true that he had
no wife, that is to say, she was as no wife to him, and so I was in no danger
that way, but the just reflections of conscience oftentimes snatch a man,
especially a man of sense, from the arms of a mistress, as it did him at last,
though on another occasion.
On the other hand,
though I was not without secret reproaches of my own conscience for the life I
led, and that even in the greatest height of the satisfaction I ever took, yet
I had the terrible prospect of poverty and starving, which lay on me as a
frightful spectre, so that there was no looking behind me. But as poverty
brought me into it, so fear of poverty kept me in it, and I frequently resolved
to leave it quite off, if I could but come to lay up money enough to maintain
me. But these were thoughts of no weight, and whenever he came to me they
vanished; for his company was so delightful, that there was no being melancholy
when he was there; the reflections were all the subject of those hours when I
was alone.
I lived six years in
this happy but unhappy condition, in which time I brought him three children,
but only the first of them lived; and though I removed twice in those six
years, yet I came back the sixth year to my first lodgings at Hammersmith.
Here it was that I was one morning surprised with a kind but melancholy letter
from my gentleman, intimating that he was very ill, and was afraid he should
have another fit of sickness, but that his wife’s relations being in the house
with him, it would not be practicable to have me with him, which, however, he
expressed his great dissatisfaction in, and that he wished I could be allowed
to tend and nurse him as I did before.
I was very much
concerned at this account, and was very impatient to know how it was with him.
I waited a fortnight or thereabouts, and heard nothing, which surprised me, and
I began to be very uneasy indeed. I think, I may say, that for the next
fortnight I was near to distracted. It was my particular difficulty that I did
not know directly when he was; for I understood at first he was in the lodgings
of his wife’s mother; but having removed myself to London, I soon found,
by the help of the direction I had for writing my letters to him, how to
inquire after him, and there I found that he was at a house in Bloomsbury,
whither he had, a little before he fell sick, removed his whole family; and
that his wife and wife’s mother were in the same house, though the wife was not
suffered to know that she was in the same house with her husband.
Here I also soon
understood that he was at the last extremity, which made me almost at the last
extremity too, to have a true account. One night I had the curiosity to
disguise myself like a servant-maid, in a round cap and straw hat, and went to
the door, as sent by a lady of his neighbourhood, where he lived before, and
giving master and mistress’s service, I said I was sent to know how Mr.—did,
and how he had rested that night. In delivering this message I got the
opportunity I desired; for, speaking with one of the maids, I held a long
gossip’s tale with her, and had all the particulars of his illness, which I
found was a pleurisy, attended with a cough and a fever. She told me also who
was in the house, and how his wife was, who, by her relation, they were in some
hopes might recover her understanding; but as to the gentleman himself, in
short she told me the doctors said there was very little hopes of him, that
in the morning they thought he had been dying, and that he was but little
better then, for they did not expect that he could live over the next night.
This was heavy news for
me, and I began now to see an end of my prosperity, and to see also that it was
very well I had played to good housewife, and secured or saved something while
he was alive, for that now I had no view of my own living before me.
It lay very heavy upon
my mind, too, that I had a son, a fine lovely boy, about five years old, and no
provision made for it, at least that I knew of. With these considerations, and
a sad heart, I went home that evening, and began to cast with myself how I
should live, and in what manner to bestow myself, for the residue of my life.
You may be sure I could
not rest without inquiring again very quickly what was become of him; and not
venturing to go myself, I sent several sham messengers, till after a
fortnight’s waiting longer, I found that there was hopes of his life, though he
was still very ill; then I abated my sending any more to the house, and in some
time after I learned in the neighbourhood that he was about house, and then
that he was abroad again.
I made no doubt then but
that I should soon hear of him, and began to comfort myself with my circumstances
being, as I thought, recovered. I waited a week, and two weeks, and with much
surprise and amazement I waited near two months and heard nothing, but that,
being recovered, he was gone into the country for the air, and for the better
recovery after his distemper. After this it was yet two months more, and then I
understood he was come to his city house again, but still I heard nothing from
him.
I had written several
letters for him, and directed them as usual, and found two or three of them had
been called for, but not the rest. I wrote again in a more pressing
manner than ever, and in one of them let him know, that I must be forced to
wait on him myself, representing my circumstances, the rent of lodgings to pay,
and the provision for the child wanting, and my own deplorable condition,
destitute of subsistence for his most solemn engagement to take care of and
provide for me. I took a copy of this letter, and finding it lay at the house
near a month and was not called for, I found means to have the copy of it put
into his own hands at a coffee-house, where I had by inquiry found he used to
go.
This letter forced an
answer from him, by which, though I found I was to be abandoned, yet I found he
had sent a letter to me some time before, desiring me to go down to the Bath
again. Its contents I shall come to presently.
It is true that
sick-beds are the time when such correspondences as this are looked on with
different countenances, and seen with other eyes than we saw them with, or than
they appeared with before. My lover had been at the gates of death, and at the
very brink of eternity; and, it seems, had been struck with a due remorse, and
with sad reflections upon his past life of gallantry and levity; and among the
rest, criminal correspondence with me, which was neither more nor less than a
long-continued life of adultery, and represented itself as it really was, not
as it had been formerly thought by him to be, and he looked upon it now with a
just and religious abhorrence.
I cannot but observe
also, and leave it for the direction of my sex in such cases of pleasure, that
whenever sincere repentance succeeds such a crime as this, there never fails to
attend a hatred of the object; and the more the affection might seem to be
before, the hatred will be the more in proportion. It will always be so, indeed
it can be no otherwise; for there cannot be a true and sincere abhorrence of
the offence, and the love to the cause of it remain; there will, with an
abhorrence of the sin, be found a detestation of the fellow-sinner; you can
expect no other.
I found it so here,
though good manners and justice in this gentleman kept him from carrying it on
to any extreme but the short history of his part in this affair was thus: he
perceived by my last letter, and by all the rest, which he went for after, that
I was not gone to Bath, that his first letter had not come to my hand;
upon which he write me this following:—
‘MADAM,— I am
surprised that my letter, dated the 8th of last month, did not come to your
hand; I give you my word it was delivered at your lodgings, and to the hands of
your maid.
‘I need not acquaint you
with what has been my condition for some time past; and how, having been at the
edge of the grave, I am, by the unexpected and undeserved mercy of Heaven,
restored again. In the condition I have been in, it cannot be strange to you
that our unhappy correspondence had not been the least of the burthens which
lay upon my conscience. I need say no more; those things that must be repented
of, must be also reformed.
I wish you would thing
of going back to the Bath. I enclose you here a bill for
I was struck with this
letter as with a thousand wounds, such as I cannot describe; the reproaches of
my own conscience were such as I cannot express, for I was not blind to my own
crime; and I reflected that I might with less offence have continued with my
brother, and lived with him as a wife, since there was no crime in our marriage
on that score, neither of us knowing it.
But I never once
reflected that I was all this while a married woman, a wife to Mr.—the
linen-draper, who, though he had left me by the necessity of his circumstances,
had no power to discharge me from the marriage contract which was between us,
or to give me a legal liberty to marry again; so that I had been no less than a
whore and an adulteress all this while. I then reproached myself with the
liberties I had taken, and how I had been a snare to this gentleman, and that
indeed I was principal in the crime; that now he was mercifully snatched out of
the gulf by a convincing work upon his mind, but that I was left as if I was
forsaken of God’s grace, and abandoned by Heaven to a continuing in my
wickedness.
Under these reflections
I continued very pensive and sad for near month, and did not go down to the Bath,
having no inclination to be with the woman whom I was with before; lest, as I
thought, she should prompt me to some wicked course of life again, as she had
done; and besides, I was very loth she should know I was cast off as above.
And now I was greatly
perplexed about my little boy. It was death to me to part with the child, and
yet when I considered the danger of being one time or other left with him to
keep without a maintenance to support him, I then resolved to leave him where
he was; but then I concluded also to be near him myself too, that I then might
have the satisfaction of seeing him, without the care of providing for him.
I sent my gentleman a
short letter, therefore, that I had obeyed his orders in all things but that of
going back to the Bath, which I could not think of for many reasons;
that however parting from him was a wound to me that I could never recover, yet
that I was fully satisfied his reflections were just, and would be very far
from desiring to obstruct his reformation or repentance.
Then I represented my
own circumstances to him in the most moving terms that I was able. I told him
that those unhappy distresses which first moved him to a generous and an honest
friendship for me, would, I hope, move him to a little concern for me now,
though the criminal part of our correspondence, which I believed neither of us
intended to fall into at the time, was broken off; that I desired to repent as
sincerely as he had done, but entreated him to put me in some condition that I
might not be exposed to the temptations which the devil never fails to excite
us to from the frightful prospect of poverty and distress; and if he had the
least apprehensions of my being troublesome to him, I begged he would put me in
a posture to go back to my mother in Virginia, from when he knew I came,
and that would put an end to all his fears on that account. I concluded, that
if he would send me
This was indeed all a
cheat thus far, viz. that I had no intention to go to Virginia, a
the account of my former affairs there may convince anybody of; but the
business was to get this last
However, the argument I
used, namely, of giving him a general release, and never troubling him any
more, prevailed effectually with him, and he sent me a bill for the money by a
person who brought with him a general release for me to sign, and which I
frankly signed, and received the money; and thus, though full sore against my
will, a final end was put to this affair.
And here I cannot but
reflect upon the unhappy consequence of too great freedoms between persons
stated as we were, upon the pretence of innocent intentions, love of
friendship, and the like; for the flesh has generally so great a share
in those friendships, that is great odds but inclination prevails at last over
the most solemn resolutions; and that vice breaks in at the breaches of
decency, which really innocent friendship ought to preserve with the greatest
strictness. But I leave the readers of these things to their own just
reflections, which they will be more able to make effectual than I, who so soon
forgot myself, and am therefore but a very indifferent monitor.
I was now a single
person again, as I may call my self; I was loosed from all the
obligations either of wedlock or mistress-ship in the world, except my husband
the linen-draper, whom, I having not now heard from in almost fifteen years,
nobody could blame me for thinking myself entirely freed from; seeing also he
had at his going away told me, that if I did not hear frequently from him, I
should conclude he was dead, and I might freely marry again to whom I pleased.
I now began to cast up
my accounts. I had by many letters and much importunity, and with the
intercession of my mother too, had a second return of some goods from my
brother (as I now call him) in Virginia, to make up the damage of
the cargo I brought away with me, and this too was upon the condition of my
sealing a general release to him, and to send it him by his correspondent at Bristol,
which, though I thought hard of, yet I was obliged to promise to do. However, I
managed so well in this case, that I got my goods away before the release was
signed, and then I always found something or other to say to evade the thing,
and to put off the signing it at all; till at length I pretended I must
write to my brother, and have his answer, before I could do it.
Including this recruit,
and before I got the last
With this stock I had
the world to begin again; but you are to consider that I was not now the same
woman as when I lived at Redriff; for, first of all, I was near twenty
years older, and did not look the better for my age, nor for my rambles to Virginia
and back again; and though I omitted nothing that might set me out to
advantage, except painting, for that I never stooped to, and had pride enough
to think I did not want it, yet there would always be some difference seen
between five-and-twenty and two-and-forty.
I cast about innumerable
ways for my future state of life, and began to consider very seriously what I
should do, but nothing offered. I took care to make the world take me
for something more than I was, and had it given out that I was a fortune, and
that my estate was in my own hands; the last of which was very true, the first
of it was as above. I had no acquaintance, which was one of my worst
misfortunes, and the consequence of that was, I had no adviser, at least who
could assist and advise together; and above all, I had nobody to whom I could
in confidence commit the secret of my circumstances to, and could depend upon
for their secrecy and fidelity; and I found by experience, that to be
friendless in the worst condition, next to being in want that a woman can be
reduced to: I say a woman, because ’tis evident men can be their own
advisers, and their own directors, and know how to work themselves out of
difficulties and into business better than women; but if a woman has no friend
to communicate her affairs to, and to advise and assist her, ’tis ten to one
but she is undone; nay, and the more money she has, the more danger she is in
of being wronged and deceived; and this was my case in the affair of the
In the next place, when
a woman is thus left desolate and void of counsel, she is just like a bag of
money or a jewel dropped on the highway, which is a prey to the next comer; if
a man of virtue and upright principles happens to find it, he will have it cried,
and the owner may come to hear of it again; but how many times shall such a
thing fall into hands that will make no scruple of seizing it for their own, to
once that it shall come into good hands?
This was evidently my
case, for I was now a loose, unguided creature, and had no help, no assistance,
no guide for my conduct; I knew what I aimed at and what I wanted, but knew
nothing how to pursue the end by direct means. I wanted to be placed in a
settle state of living, and had I happened to meet with a sober, good husband,
I should have been as faithful and true a wife to him as virtue itself could
have formed. If I had been otherwise, the vice came in always at the door of
necessity, not at the door of inclination; and I understood too well, by the want
of it, what the value of a settled life was, to do anything to forfeit the
felicity of it; nay, I should have made the better wife for all the
difficulties I had passed through, by a great deal; nor did I in any of the
time that I had been a wife give my husbands the least uneasiness on account of
my behaviour.
But all this was
nothing; I found no encouraging prospect. I waited; I lived regularly, and with
as much frugality as became my circumstances, but nothing offered, nothing
presented, and the main stock wasted apace. What to do I knew not; the terror
of approaching poverty lay hard upon my spirits. I had some money, but where to
place it I knew not, nor would the interest of it maintain me, at least not in London.
At length a new scene
opened. There was in the house where I lodged a north-country woman that went
for a gentlewoman, and nothing was more frequent in her discourse than her
account of the cheapness of provisions, and the easy way of living in her
country; how plentiful and how cheap everything was, what good company they
kept, and the like; till at last I told her she almost tempted me to go and
live in her country; for I that was a widow, though I had sufficient to live
on, yet had no way of increasing it; and that I found I could not live here
under
I should have observed,
that she was always made to believe, as everybody else was, that I was a great
fortune, or at least that I had three or four thousand pounds, if not more, and
all in my own hands; and she was mighty sweet upon me when she thought me
inclined in the least to go into her country. She said she had a sister lived
near Liverpool, that her brother was a considerable gentleman there, and
had a great estate also in Ireland; that she would go down there in
about two months, and if I would give her my company thither, I should be as
welcome as herself for a month or more as I pleased, till I should see how I
liked the country; and if I thought fit to live there, she would undertake they
would take care, though they did not entertain lodgers themselves, they would
recommend me to some agreeable family, where I should be placed to my content.
If this woman had known
my real circumstances, she would never have laid so many snares, and taken so
many weary steps to catch a poor desolate creature that was good for little
when it was caught; and indeed I, whose case was almost desperate, and thought
I could not be much worse, was not very anxious about what might befall me,
provided they did me no personal injury; so I suffered myself, though not
without a great deal of invitation and great professions of sincere friendship
and real kindness—I say, I suffered myself to be prevailed upon to go
with her, and accordingly I packed up my baggage, and put myself in a posture
for a journey, though I did not absolutely know whither I was to go.
And now I found myself
in great distress; what little I had in the world was all in money, except as
before, a little plate, some linen, and my clothes; as for my household stuff,
I had little or none, for I had lived always in lodgings; but I had not one
friend in the world with whom to trust that little I had, or to direct me how
to dispose of it, and this perplexed me night and day. I thought of the bank,
and of the other companies in London, but I had no friend to commit the
management of it to, and keep and carry about with me bank bills, tallies,
orders, and such things, I looked upon at as unsafe; that if they were lost, my
money was lost, and then I was undone; and, on the other hand, I might be
robbed and perhaps murdered in a strange place for them. This perplexed me
strangely, and what to do I knew not.
It came in my thoughts
one morning that I would go to the bank myself, where I had often been
to receive the interest of some bills I had, which had interest payable on
them, and where I had found a clerk, to whom I applied myself, very honest and
just to me, and particularly so fair one time that when I had misstold my
money, and taken less than my due, and was coming away, he set me to rights and
gave me the rest, which he might have put into his own pocket.
I went to him and
represented my case very plainly, and asked if he would trouble himself to
be my adviser, who was a poor friendless widow, and knew not what to do. He
told me, if I desired his opinion of anything within the reach of his
business, he would do his endeavour that I should not be wronged, but that he
would also help me to a good sober person who was a grave man of his
acquaintance, who was a clerk in such business too, though not in their house,
whose judgment was good, and whose honesty I might depend upon. ‘For,’ added
he, ‘I will answer for him, and for every step he takes; if he wrongs you,
madam, of one farthing, it shall lie at my door, I will make it good; and
he delights to assist people in such cases—he does it as an act of charity.’
I was a little at a
stand in this discourse; but after some pause I told him I had rather have
depended upon him, because I had found him honest, but if that could not be, I
would take his recommendation sooner than any one’s else. ‘I dare say,
madam,’ says he, ‘that you will be as well satisfied with my friend as with
me, and he is thoroughly able to assist you, which I am not.’ It seems he
had his hands full of the business of the bank, and had engaged to meddle with
no other business than that of his office, which I heard afterwards, but did
not understand then. He added, that his friend should take nothing of me for
his advice or assistance, and this indeed encouraged me very much.
He appointed the same
evening, after the bank was shut and business over, for me to meet him and his
friend. And indeed as soon as I saw his friend, and he began but to talk of the
affair, I was fully satisfied that I had a very honest man to deal with; his
countenance spoke it, and his character, as I heard afterwards, was everywhere
so good, that I had no room for any more doubts upon me.
After the first meeting,
in which I only said what I had said before, we parted, and he appointed me to
come the next day to him, telling me I might in the meantime satisfy
myself of him by inquiry, which, however, I knew not how well to do, having no
acquaintance myself.
Accordingly I met him
the next day, when I entered more freely with him into my case. I told him
my circumstances at large: that I was a widow come over from America,
perfectly desolate and friendless; that I had a little money, and but a little,
and was almost distracted for fear of losing it, having no friend in the world
to trust with the management of it; that I was going into the north of England
to live cheap, that my stock might not waste; that I would willingly lodge my
money in the bank, but that I durst not carry the bills about me, and the like,
as above; and how to correspond about it, or with whom, I knew not.
He told me I might lodge
the money in the bank as an account, and its being entered into the books would
entitle me to the money at any time, and if I was in the north I might draw
bills on the cashier and receive it when I would; but that then it would be
esteemed as running cash, and the bank would give no interest for it; that I
might buy stock with it, and so it would lie in store for me, but that then if
I wanted to dispose if it, I must come up to town on purpose to transfer it,
and even it would be with some difficulty I should receive the half-yearly
dividend, unless I was here in person, or had some friend I could trust with
having the stock in him name to do it for me, and that would have the same
difficulty in it as before; and with that he looked hard at me and smiled a
little. At last, says he, ‘Why do you not get a head steward, madam, that
may take you and your money together into keeping, and then you would have the
trouble taken off your hands?’ ‘Ay, sir, and the money too, it may be,’ said
I; ‘for truly I find the hazard that way is as much as ’tis t’other way’;
but I remember I said secretly to myself, ‘I wish you would ask me the
question fairly, I would consider very seriously on it before I said No.’
He went on a good way
with me, and I thought once or twice he was in earnest, but to my real
affliction, I found at last he had a wife; but when he owned he had a wife he
shook his head, and said with some concern, that indeed he had a wife,
and no wife. I began to think he had been in the condition of my late
lover, and that his wife had been distempered or lunatic, or some such thing.
However, we had not much more discourse at that time, but he told me he was in
too much hurry of business then, but that if I would come home to his house
after their business was over, he would by that time consider what might be
done for me, to put my affairs in a posture of security. I told him I would
come, and desired to know where he lived. He gave me a direction in writing,
and when he gave it me he read it to me, and said, ‘There ’tis, madam, if you
dare trust yourself with me.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ said I, ‘I believe I may
venture to trust you with myself, for you have a wife, you say, and I don’t
want a husband; besides, I dare trust you with my money, which is all I have in
the world, and if that were gone, I may trust myself anywhere.’
He said some things in
jest that were very handsome and mannerly, and would have pleased me very well
if they had been in earnest; but that passed over, I took the
directions, and appointed to attend him at his house at seven o’clock the same
evening.
When I came he made
several proposals for my placing my money in the bank, in order to my having
interest for it; but still some difficult or other came in the way, which he
objected as not safe; and I found such a sincere disinterested honesty in him,
that I began to muse with myself, that I had certainly found the honest man I
wanted, and that I could never put myself into better hands; so I told him with
a great deal of frankness that I had never met with a man or woman yet that I
could trust, or in whom I could think myself safe, but that I saw he was so
disinterestedly concerned for my safety, that I said I would freely
trust him with the management of that little I had, if he would accept to be
steward for a poor widow that could give him no salary.
He smiled and, standing
up, with great respect saluted me. He told me he could not but take it very
kindly that I had so good an opinion of him; that he would not deceive me, that
he would do anything in his power to serve me, and expect no salary; but that
he could not by any means accept of a trust, that it might bring him to be
suspected of self-interest, and that if I should die he might have disputes
with my executors, which he should be very loth to encumber himself with.
I told him if those were
all his objections I would soon remove them, and convince him that there was
not the least room for any difficulty; for that, first, as for suspecting him,
if ever I should do it, now is the time to suspect him, and not put the trust
into his hands, and whenever I did suspect him, he could but throw it up then
and refuse to go any further. Then, as to executors, I assured him I had
no heirs, nor any relations in England, and I should alter my condition
before I died, and then his trust and trouble should cease together, which,
however, I had no prospect of yet; but I told him if I died as I was, it should
be all his own, and he would deserve it by being so faithful to me as I was
satisfied he would be.
He changed his
countenance at this discourse, and asked me how I came to have so much
good-will for him; and, looking very much pleased, said he might very lawfully
wish he was a single man for my sake. I smiled, and told him as he was not, my
offer could have no design upon him in it, and to wish, as he did, was not to
be allowed, ‘twas criminal to his wife.
He told me I was wrong.
‘For,’ says he, ‘madam, as I said before, I have a wife and no wife, and
‘twould be no sin to me to wish her hanged, if that were all.’ ‘I know nothing
of your circumstances that way, sir,’ said I; ‘but it cannot be innocent
to wish your wife dead.’ ‘I tell you,’ says he again, ‘she is a wife and
no wife; you don’t know what I am, or what she is.’
‘That’s true,’ said I;
‘sir, I do not know what you are, but I believe you to be an honest man, and
that’s the cause of all my confidence in you.’
‘Well, well,’ says he,
‘and so I am, I hope, too. but I am something else too, madam; for,’ says
he, ‘to be plain with you, I am a cuckold, and she is a whore.’
He spoke it in a kind of jest, but it was with such an awkward smile, that I
perceived it was what struck very close to him, and he looked dismally when he
said it.
‘That alters the case
indeed, sir,’ said I, ‘as to that part you were speaking of; but a cuckold,
you know, may be an honest man; it does not alter that case at all. Besides, I
think,’ said I, ‘since your wife is so dishonest to you, you are too
honest to her to own her for your wife; but that,’ said I, ‘is what I
have nothing to do with.’
‘Nay,’ says he,
‘I do not think to clear my hands of her; for, to be plain with you, madam,’ added
he, ‘I am no contended cuckold neither: on the other hand, I assure
you it provokes me the highest degree, but I can’t help myself; she that will
be a whore, will be a whore.’
I waived the discourse
and began to talk of my business; but I found he could not have done with it,
so I let him alone, and he went on to tell me all the circumstances of his
case, too long to relate here; particularly, that having been out of England
some time before he came to the post he was in, she had had two children in the
meantime by an officer of the army; and that when he came to England
and, upon her submission, took her again, and maintained her very well, yet she
ran away from him with a linen-draper’s apprentice, robbed him of what she
could come at, and continued to live from him still. ‘So that, madam,’ says
he, ‘she is a whore not by necessity, which is the common bait of your sex,
but by inclination, and for the sake of the vice.’
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