Moll Flanders
D >>
Daniel Defoe >> Moll Flanders
Pages:
1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28
But the kindness of the ladies of the town did not end here,
for when they came to understand that I was no more maintained
by the public allowance as before, they gave me money oftener
than formerly; and as I grew up they brought me work to do
for them, such as linen to make, and laces to mend, and heads
to dress up, and not only paid me for doing them, but even
taught me how to do them; so that now I was a gentlewoman
indeed, as I understood that word, I not only found myself
clothes and paid my nurse for my keeping, but got money in
my pocket too beforehand.
The ladies also gave me clothes frequently of their own or
their children's; some stockings, some petticoats, some gowns,
some one thing, some another, and these my old woman
managed for me like a mere mother, and kept them for me,
obliged me to mend them, and turn them and twist them to
the best advantage, for she was a rare housewife.
At last one of the ladies took so much fancy to me that she
would have me home to her house, for a month, she said, to
be among her daughters.
Now, though this was exceeding kind in her, yet, as my old
good woman said to her, unless she resolved to keep me for
good and all, she would do the little gentlewoman more harm
than good. 'Well,' says the lady, 'that's true; and therefore I'll
only take her home for a week, then, that I may see how my
daughters and she agree together, and how I like her temper,
and then I'll tell you more; and in the meantime, if anybody
comes to see her as they used to do, you may only tell them
you have sent her out to my house.'
This was prudently managed enough, and I went to the lady's
house; but I was so pleased there with the young ladies, and
they so pleased with me, that I had enough to do to come away,
and they were as unwilling to part with me.
However, I did come away, and lived almost a year more with
my honest old woman, and began now to be very helpful to
her; for I was almost fourteen years old, was tall of my age,
and looked a little womanish; but I had such a taste of genteel
living at the lady's house that I was not so easy in my old
quarters as I used to be, and I thought it was fine to be a
gentlewoman indeed, for I had quite other notions of a
gentlewoman now than I had before; and as I thought, I say,
that it was fine to be a gentlewoman, so I loved to be among
gentlewomen, and therefore I longed to be there again.
About the time that I was fourteen years and a quarter old,
my good nurse, mother I rather to call her, fell sick and died.
I was then in a sad condition indeed, for as there is no great
bustle in putting an end to a poor body's family when once
they are carried to the grave, so the poor good woman being
buried, the parish children she kept were immediately removed
by the church-wardens; the school was at an end, and the
children of it had no more to do but just stay at home till they
were sent somewhere else; and as for what she left, her daughter,
a married woman with six or seven children, came and swept
it all away at once, and removing the goods, they had no more
to say to me than to jest with me, and tell me that the little
gentlewoman might set up for herself if she pleased.
I was frighted out of my wits almost, and knew not what to do,
for I was, as it were, turned out of doors to the wide world, and
that which was still worse, the old honest woman had two-and-
twenty shillings of mine in her hand, which was all the estate the
little gentlewoman had in the world; and when I asked the
daughter for it, she huffed me and laughed at me, and told me
she had nothing to do with it.
It was true the good, poor woman had told her daughter of it,
and that it lay in such a place, that it was the child's money,
and had called once or twice for me to give it me, but I was,
unhappily, out of the way somewhere or other, and when I
came back she was past being in a condition to speak of it.
However, the daughter was so honest afterwards as to give it
me, though at first she used me cruelly about it.
Now was I a poor gentlewoman indeed, and I was just that
very night to be turned into the wide world; for the daughter
removed all the goods, and I had not so much as a lodging to
go to, or a bit of bread to eat. But it seems some of the neighbours,
who had known my circumstances, took so much compassion
of me as to acquaint the lady in whose family I had been a week,
as I mentioned above; and immediately she sent her maid to
fetch me away, and two of her daughters came with the maid
though unsent. So I went with them, bag and baggage, and
with a glad heart, you may be sure. The fright of my condition
had made such an impression upon me, that I did not want now
to be a gentlewoman, but was very willing to be a servant, and
that any kind of servant they thought fit to have me be.
But my new generous mistress, for she exceeded the good
woman I was with before, in everything, as well as in the
matter of estate; I say, in everything except honesty; and for
that, though this was a lady most exactly just, yet I must not
forget to say on all occasions, that the first, though poor, was
as uprightly honest as it was possible for any one to be.
I was no sooner carried away, as I have said, by this good
gentlewoman, but the first lady, that is to say, the Mayoress
that was, sent her two daughters to take care of me; and another
family which had taken notice of me when I was the little
gentlewoman, and had given me work to do, sent for me after
her, so that I was mightily made of, as we say; nay, and they
were not a little angry, especially madam the Mayoress, that
her friend had taken me away from her, as she called it; for,
as she said, I was hers by right, she having been the first that
took any notice of me. But they that had me would not part
with me; and as for me, though I should have been very well
treated with any of the others, yet I could not be better than
where I was.
Here I continued till I was between seventeen and eighteen
years old, and here I had all the advantages for my education
that could be imagined; the lady had masters home to the
house to teach her daughters to dance, and to speak French,
and to write, and other to teach them music; and I was always
with them, I learned as fast as they; and though the masters
were not appointed to teach me, yet I learned by imitation and
inquiry all that they learned by instruction and direction; so
that, in short, I learned to dance and speak French as well as
any of them, and to sing much better, for I had a better voice
than any of them. I could not so readily come at playing on
the harpsichord or spinet, because I had no instrument of my
own to practice on, and could only come at theirs in the intervals
when they left it, which was uncertain; but yet I learned tolerably
well too, and the young ladies at length got two instruments,
that is to say, a harpsichord and a spinet too, and then they
taught me themselves. But as to dancing, they could hardly
help my learning country-dances, because they always wanted
me to make up even number; and, on the other hand, they were
as heartily willing to learn me everything that they had been
taught themselves, as I could be to take the learning.
By this means I had, as I have said above, all the advantages
of education that I could have had if I had been as much a
gentlewoman as they were with whom I lived; and in some
things I had the advantage of my ladies, though they were my
superiors; but they were all the gifts of nature, and which all
their fortunes could not furnish. First, I was apparently
handsomer than any of them; secondly, I was better shaped;
and, thirdly, I sang better, by which I mean I had a better voice;
in all which you will, I hope, allow me to say, I do not speak
my own conceit of myself, but the opinion of all that knew
the family.
I had with all these the common vanity of my sex, viz. that
being really taken for very handsome, or, if you please, for a
great beauty, I very well knew it, and had as good an opinion
of myself as anybody else could have of me; and particularly
I loved to hear anybody speak of it, which could not but happen
to me sometimes, and was a great satisfaction to me.
Thus far I have had a smooth story to tell of myself, and in all
this part of my life I not only had the reputation of living in a
very good family, and a family noted and respected everywhere
for virtue and sobriety, and for every valuable thing; but I had
the character too of a very sober, modest, and virtuous young
woman, and such I had always been; neither had I yet any
occasion to think of anything else, or to know what a temptation
to wickedness meant.
But that which I was too vain of was my ruin, or rather my
vanity was the cause of it. The lady in the house where I was
had two sons, young gentlemen of very promising parts and
of extraordinary behaviour, and it was my misfortune to be
very well with them both, but they managed themselves with
me in a quite different manner.
The eldest, a gay gentleman that knew the town as well as the
country, and though he had levity enough to do an ill-natured
thing, yet had too much judgment of things to pay too dear
for his pleasures; he began with the unhappy snare to all
women, viz. taking notice upon all occasions how pretty I was,
as he called it, how agreeable, how well-carriaged, and the
like; and this he contrived so subtly, as if he had known as
well how to catch a woman in his net as a partridge when he
went a-setting; for he would contrive to be talking this to his
sisters when, though I was not by, yet when he knew I was
not far off but that I should be sure to hear him. His sisters
would return softly to him, 'Hush, brother, she will hear you;
she is but in the next room.' Then he would put it off and talk
softlier, as if he had not know it, and begin to acknowledge he
was wrong; and then, as if he had forgot himself, he would
speak aloud again, and I, that was so well pleased to hear it,
was sure to listen for it upon all occasions.
After he had thus baited his hook, and found easily enough
the method how to lay it in my way, he played an opener game;
and one day, going by his sister's chamber when I was there,
doing something about dressing her, he comes in with an air
of gaiety. 'Oh, Mrs. Betty,' said he to me, 'how do you do,
Mrs. Betty? Don't your cheeks burn, Mrs. Betty?' I made a
curtsy and blushed, but said nothing. 'What makes you talk so,
brother?' says the lady. 'Why,' says he, 'we have been talking
of her below-stairs this half-hour.' 'Well,' says his sister,
'you can say no harm of her, that I am sure, so 'tis no matter
what you have been talking about.' 'Nay,' says he, ''tis so far
from talking harm of her, that we have been talking a great
deal of good, and a great many fine things have been said of
Mrs. Betty, I assure you; and particularly, that she is the
handsomest young woman in Colchester; and, in short, they
begin to toast her health in the town.'
'I wonder at you, brother,' says the sister. Betty wants but one
thing, but she had as good want everything, for the market is
against our sex just now; and if a young woman have beauty,
birth, breeding, wit, sense, manners, modesty, and all these to
an extreme, yet if she have not money, she's nobody, she had
as good want them all for nothing but money now recommends
a woman; the men play the game all into their own hands.'
Her younger brother, who was by, cried, 'Hold, sister, you run
too fast; I am an exception to your rule. I assure you, if I find
a woman so accomplished as you talk of, I say, I assure you, I
would not trouble myself about the money.'
'Oh,' says the sister, 'but you will take care not to fancy one,
then, without the money.'
'You don't know that neither,' says the brother.
'But why, sister,' says the elder brother, 'why do you exclaim
so at the men for aiming so much at the fortune? You are none
of them that want a fortune, whatever else you want.'
'I understand you, brother,' replies the lady very smartly; 'you
suppose I have the money, and want the beauty; but as times
go now, the first will do without the last, so I have the better
of my neighbours.'
'Well,' says the younger brother, 'but your neighbours, as you
call them, may be even with you, for beauty will steal a husband
sometimes in spite of money, and when the maid chances to be
handsomer than the mistress, she oftentimes makes as good a
market, and rides in a coach before her.'
I thought it was time for me to withdraw and leave them, and
I did so, but not so far but that I heard all their discourse, in
which I heard abundance of the fine things said of myself,
which served to prompt my vanity, but, as I soon found, was
not the way to increase my interest in the family, for the sister
and the younger brother fell grievously out about it; and as he
said some very disobliging things to her upon my account, so
I could easily see that she resented them by her future conduct
to me, which indeed was very unjust to me, for I had never
had the least thought of what she suspected as to her younger
brother; indeed, the elder brother, in his distant, remote way,
had said a great many things as in jest, which I had the folly
to believe were in earnest, or to flatter myself with the hopes
of what I ought to have supposed he never intended, and
perhaps never thought of.
It happened one day that he came running upstairs, towards
the room where his sisters used to sit and work, as he often
used to do; and calling to them before he came in, as was his
way too, I, being there alone, stepped to the door, and said,
'Sir, the ladies are not here, they are walked down the garden.'
As I stepped forward to say this, towards the door, he was just
got to the door, and clasping me in his arms, as if it had been
by chance, 'Oh, Mrs. Betty,' says he, 'are you here? That's
better still; I want to speak with you more than I do with them';
and then, having me in his arms, he kissed me three or four times.
I struggled to get away, and yet did it but faintly neither, and
he held me fast, and still kissed me, till he was almost out of
breath, and then, sitting down, says, 'Dear Betty, I am in love
with you.'
His words, I must confess, fired my blood; all my spirits flew
about my heart and put me into disorder enough, which he
might easily have seen in my face. He repeated it afterwards
several times, that he was in love with me, and my heart spoke
as plain as a voice, that I liked it; nay, whenever he said, 'I am
in love with you,' my blushes plainly replied, 'Would you
were, sir.'
However, nothing else passed at that time; it was but a sur-
prise, and when he was gone I soon recovered myself again.
He had stayed longer with me, but he happened to look out
at the window and see his sisters coming up the garden, so
he took his leave, kissed me again, told me he was very serious,
and I should hear more of him very quickly, and away he went,
leaving me infinitely pleased, though surprised; and had there
not been one misfortune in it, I had been in the right, but the
mistake lay here, that Mrs. Betty was in earnest and the
gentleman was not.
From this time my head ran upon strange things, and I may
truly say I was not myself; to have such a gentleman talk to
me of being in love with me, and of my being such a charming
creature, as he told me I was; these were things I knew not
how to bear, my vanity was elevated to the last degree. It is
true I had my head full of pride, but, knowing nothing of the
wickedness of the times, I had not one thought of my own
safety or of my virtue about me; and had my young master
offered it at first sight, he might have taken any liberty he
thought fit with me; but he did not see his advantage, which
was my happiness for that time.
After this attack it was not long but he found an opportunity
to catch me again, and almost in the same posture; indeed, it
had more of design in it on his part, though not on my part. It
was thus: the young ladies were all gone a-visiting with their
mother; his brother was out of town; and as for his father, he
had been in London for a week before. He had so well watched
me that he knew where I was, though I did not so much as know
that he was in the house; and he briskly comes up the stairs and,
seeing me at work, comes into the room to me directly, and
began just as he did before, with taking me in his arms, and
kissing me for almost a quarter of an hour together.
It was his younger sister's chamber that I was in, and as there
was nobody in the house but the maids below-stairs, he was,
it may be, the ruder; in short, he began to be in earnest with me
indeed. Perhaps he found me a little too easy, for God knows
I made no resistance to him while he only held me in his arms
and kissed me; indeed, I was too well pleased with it to resist
him much.
However, as it were, tired with that kind of work, we sat down,
and there he talked with me a great while; he said he was
charmed with me, and that he could not rest night or day till
he had told me how he was in love with me, and, if I was able
to love him again, and would make him happy, I should be the
saving of his life, and many such fine things. I said little to
him again, but easily discovered that I was a fool, and that I
did not in the least perceive what he meant.
Then he walked about the room, and taking me by the hand,
I walked with him; and by and by, taking his advantage, he
threw me down upon the bed, and kissed me there most
violently; but, to give him his due, offered no manner of
rudeness to me, only kissed a great while. After this he
thought he had heard somebody come upstairs, so got off from
the bed, lifted me up, professing a great deal of love for me,
but told me it was all an honest affection, and that he meant
no ill to me; and with that he put five guineas into my hand,
and went away downstairs.
I was more confounded with the money than I was before with
the love, and began to be so elevated that I scarce knew the
ground I stood on. I am the more particular in this part, that
if my story comes to be read by any innocent young body, they
may learn from it to guard themselves against the mischiefs
which attend an early knowledge of their own beauty. If a
young woman once thinks herself handsome, she never doubts
the truth of any man that tells her he is in love with her; for if
she believes herself charming enough to captivate him, 'tis
natural to expect the effects of it.
This young gentleman had fired his inclination as much as he
had my vanity, and, as if he had found that he had an opportunity
and was sorry he did not take hold of it, he comes up again in
half an hour or thereabouts, and falls to work with me again as
before, only with a little less introduction.
And first, when he entered the room, he turned about and shut
the door. 'Mrs. Betty,' said he, 'I fancied before somebody
was coming upstairs, but it was not so; however,' adds he,
'if they find me in the room with you, they shan't catch me
a-kissing of you.' I told him I did not know who should be
coming upstairs, for I believed there was nobody in the house
but the cook and the other maid, and they never came up those
stairs. 'Well, my dear,' says he, ''tis good to be sure, however';
and so he sits down, and we began to talk. And now, though
I was still all on fire with his first visit, and said little, he did
as it were put words in my mouth, telling me how passionately
he loved me, and that though he could not mention such a thing
till he came to this estate, yet he was resolved to make me happy
then, and himself too; that is to say, to marry me, and abundance
of such fine things, which I, poor fool, did not understand the
drift of, but acted as if there was no such thing as any kind of
love but that which tended tomatrimony; and if he had spoke
of that, I had no room, as well as no power, to have said no;
but we were not come that length yet.
We had not sat long, but he got up, and, stopping my very
breath with kisses, threw me upon the bed again; but then
being both well warmed, he went farther with me than decency
permits me to mention, nor had it been in my power to have
denied him at that moment, had he offered much more than
he did.
However, though he took these freedoms with me, it did not
go to that which they call the last favour, which, to do him
justice, he did not attempt; and he made that self-denial of his
a plea for all his freedoms with me upon other occasions after
this. When this was over, he stayed but a little while, but he
put almost a handful of gold in my hand, and left me, making
a thousand protestations of his passion for me, and of his
loving me above all the women in the world.
It will not be strange if I now began to think, but alas! it was
but with very little solid reflection. I had a most unbounded
stock of vanity and pride, and but a very little stock of virtue.
I did indeed case sometimes with myself what young master
aimed at, but thought of nothing but the fine words and the
gold; whether he intended to marry me, or not to marry me,
seemed a matter of no great consequence to me; nor did my
thoughts so much as suggest to me the necessity of making
any capitulation for myself, till he came to make a kind of
formal proposal to me, as you shall hear presently.
Thus I gave up myself to a readiness of being ruined without
the least concern and am a fair memento to all young women
whose vanity prevails over their virtue. Nothing was ever so
stupid on both sides. Had I acted as became me, and resisted
as virtue and honour require, this gentleman had either desisted
his attacks, finding no room to expect the accomplishment of
his design, or had made fair and honourable proposals of
marriage; in which case, whoever had blamed him, nobody
could have blamed me. In short, if he had known me, and
how easy the trifle he aimed at was to be had, he would have
troubled his head no farther, but have given me four or five
guineas, and have lain with me the next time he had come at me.
And if I had known his thoughts, and how hard he thought I
would be to be gained, I might have made my own terms with
him; and if I had not capitulated for an immediate marriage,
I might for a maintenance till marriage, and might have had
what I would; for he was already rich to excess, besides what
he had in expectation; but I seemed wholly to have abandoned
all such thoughts as these, and was taken up only with the pride
of my beauty, and of being beloved by such a gentleman. As
for the gold, I spent whole hours in looking upon it; I told the
guineas over and over a thousand times a day. Never poor
vain creature was so wrapt up with every part of the story as
I was, not considering what was before me, and how near my
ruin was at the door; indeed, I think I rather wished for that
ruin than studied to avoid it.
In the meantime, however, I was cunning enough not to give
the least room to any in the family to suspect me, or to imagine
that I had the least correspondence with this young gentleman.
I scarce ever looked towards him in public, or answered if he
spoke to me when anybody was near us; but for all that, we
had every now and then a little encounter, where we had room
for a word or two, an now and then a kiss, but no fair opportunity
for the mischief intended; and especially considering that he
made more circumlocution than, if he had known by thoughts,
he had occasion for; and the work appearing difficult to him,
he really made it so.
But as the devil is an unwearied tempter, so he never fails to
find opportunity for that wickedness he invites to. It was one
evenine that I was in the garden, with his two younger sisters
and himself, and all very innocently merry, when he found
means to convey a note into my hand, by which he directed
me to understand that he would to-morrow desire me publicly
to go of an errand for him into the town, and that I should see
him somewhere by the way.
Accordingly, after dinner, he very gravely says to me, his
sisters being all by, 'Mrs. Betty, I must ask a favour of you.'
'What's that?' says his second sister. 'Nay, sister,' says he
very gravely, 'if you can't spare Mrs. Betty to-day, any other
time will do.' Yes, they said, they could spare her well enough,
and the sister begged pardon for asking, which they did but of
mere course, without any meaning. 'Well, but, brother,' says
the eldest sister, 'you must tell Mrs. Betty what it is; if it be
any private business that we must not hear, you may call her
out. There she is.' 'Why, sister,' says the gentleman very
gravely, 'what do you mean? I only desire her to do into the
High Street' (and then he pulls out a turnover), 'to such a shop';
and then he tells them a long story of two fine neckcloths he
had bid money for, and he wanted to have me go and make an
errand to buy a neck to the turnover that he showed, to see if
they would take my money for the neckcloths; to bid a shilling
more, and haggle with them; and then he made more errands,
and so continued to have such petty business to do, that I should
be sure to stay a good while.
Pages:
1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28